In Fine Company
by DismalBismuth
Summary: Naruto becomes a hostess and tries to protect his faltering manliness and complete his mission just when old faces seemingly return. SasuNaru.
1. Chapter 1

This whole writing fanfiction is kinda new to me. I wrote an awful crack-filled Harry Potter fic once… back about 5 years ago and haven't done anything since. So it might be a bit rough for awhile, so if you see any mistakes… Review! Tell me what you think!

**Summary:** This story is bordering pretty close to AU. Instead of heading back to Konoha after a 2 ½ year long absence Naruto and Jiraiya are assigned a mission to infiltrate a host club. Naruto goes in as a beautiful (albeit a bit slow) hostess to seduce and destroy rich old men who are involved in funding the Sound. He's in for a shock when the clients turn out to be a bit different then he had initially imagined. The story will be eventual SasuNaru, but don't think it'll go the way of poor (emo-brat) Sasuke being tricked by a guilt-ridden Naru-chan into loving his female form. The story is mostly comedy based, and I've kinda cut out important events that would be happening in the universe at the moment. Gaara's kidnapping? Didn't happen. Sexy Sai coming in? Not yet, but I'm considering putting him into the story, if only because he's frickin awesome.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto was created by Masashi Kishimoto and not by me. But just you wait, in five years I'll come up with an idea that will make them go, "Naruto-who?" Yeah. That's right. kicked in the head

**Chapter 1**

"I thought issue #37 lacked the same sort of passion that made Icha Icha so great… Sensei, you know I of all people would never doubt your genius… But don't you think that Kaoru should've been topless in that last scene…?" The man had initially looked normal enough, or at least he came off that way when Naruto had first approached the Ramen stall. The owner greeted him with a friendly smile and efficient service. It was all going well until Jiraiya strolled up with his latest novel tucked under his arm. The owner noticed, and when Jiraiya introduced himself Naruto could almost see the stars of admiration coming from the eyes of the other closet pervert. It was like they were a secret club, of which his teacher was president. They could greet each other with nose-bleeds, rather then secret handshakes just to prove that they were members.

"HEY! I'm trying to eat my breakfast!" Naruto slammed down his unused chopsticks (he was just sucking in the noodles anyways) and glared at the man talking to the pervert-sannin. Jiraiya just turned and gave him a disapproving glare, his large upper lift curling upwards.

"Art is only ever distasteful to those who lack class. I'm so sorry sir, my student isn't like you… admiring the beauty and grace of a nubile young woman searching for love in a harsh world… " He shook his head and sighed, looking across the street. Naruto could tell by the light blush that he had probably spotted a nubile young woman himself. Youth being the understatement. It was so wrong that a old geezer like him was still trying to hit it with girls over thirty years younger then himself.

"Ah yes… About Kaoru… I didn't want to expose her quite so early… The tension adds fuel to the fire, eh?" Naruto rolled his eyes and finished his Ramen. The owner of the stall waved away his money.

"Anything for the student of the great author himself. I can't believe I met you in person!" He grinned happily and idly cleaned his counter. Naruto put his scarce savings back into his froggy purse. So what that he was fifteen and he still carried it around… He had also kept his precious seal cap until recently. It was so cute with its googly eyes! Tragically, it disappeared mysteriously one night… He suspected Jiraiya took it, if only because he always knew the man was jealous of its simplistic geniousiticness.

"I'm always honored to meet one of my fans and hear their suggestions. And have no worries for the future and Kaoru's virginity! My next issue will be the steamiest one ever! Secret preview right now…" His teacher leaned over the blue table and whispered something in the owners ears. By his reddening face Naruto could tell that whatever was being said definitely wasn't meant for the public.

"Oi! Pervert Hermit! I'm leaving! L-E-V-I-N-G! Now!" Naruto threw back the curtains of the Ramen stall and stormed into the busy street of Nara.

"Leving?"

"My student's kind of an idiot."

* * *

"What are we still doing here?" Naruto plopped down on his single cot with a huff. He placed his tan hands under his chin and pouted and glared at his teacher under his long blond bangs. Nara wasn't a bad city and the Thunder country wasn't bad in itself, but Naruto wanted to get back to training, and they had been here a week seemingly without any reason other then to rot in their hotel room.

"What do you mean? I took you out for Ramen and everything! Now you're complaining already… such a brat…" Jiraiya entered through the door of their cheap room, his white hair nearly touching the tip of the door frame. He passed a mirror and started to run his hands through his massive mane.

"Took me out for Ramen… Ha! That was on the way past the brothel! Stupid pervert. You just wanted to see the ladies in the window didn't you?"

"I was looking at the brothel, but not to see the lovely ladies. I was doing research. Now that you would actually comprehend something as useful as that."

"Research? Aren't you done you current book? Your excuses are almost as sucky as Kakashi-sensei's."

"No, it's research for our next mission. I got a message from Tsunade. There's been some suspicious activity there, meetings among… Sound nin's…" Jiraiya must have known what kind of effect those words would have on Naruto, but it couldn't be helped.

"So… were we sent in because… because… _he'll be there?"_

"Honestly, I don't know Naruto. But there is a reason we were requested… I not sure whether you're going to like it, but with you I guess one can never be sure." With this Jiraiya went into the closet and pulled out a long bag. It flopped loosely in his hands, but it was ambiguous enough that Naruto couldn't make it out.

"Eh? What's that? Where did you get that? Is it some kind of great and magical weapon you're going to give me? I swear it better be-" He stopped. He stared. The bag was open… and inside was…

A cute pink dress…

…

"AHHHHH!" Naruto screamed and pointed his finger violently at the thing sitting in the bag. "You have to be kidding!"

"Naruto there's no need to overreact like this! I know it may come as a shock to you…but-"

"YOU'RE A CROSS DRESSER!"

"-I'm sure the dress well fit you… Eh? What? I'm a cross dresser?" Jiraiya raised his eyebrow.

"… The dress will fit me…? EH! AHHHH!" Jiraiya ran over to Naruto and hit him over the head.

"Shut up!" Naruto just bit him in the hand and jumped off the bed.

"You can't make me become like you! I'm a BOY! Booooy! See no boobs!" He pulled up his black T-shirt to a blank faced Jiraiya. "You can put on your make-up… your high heels and stuff your bra yourself." He crossed his arms defiantly, and he could hear banging on the walls where their poor neighbors were trying to get them to quiet down.

"Damn brat. I don't cross dress… except that one time… That was one wild night… Hehe… Ahh… That woman had some weird feti… Er… That's beside the point. Don't you think you're over-exaggerating? We want you to use your Sexy no Jutsu to infiltrate a nearby club. It was _you _who created the infamous jutsu in the first place wasn't it? You willingly invented the great technique that single-handedly brought down the Third Hokage himself! I'm sure Tsunade thought long and hard about who was best for this mission. It's something only you can do!"

_Only I can do... Hehe..._

Jiraiya could almost see the sparse brain cells inside his students head turning…

_It must be a super-important mission! A-class, just for me!_

"Yosh! You mean like a super-exclusive deadly mission! Count me in! Wait… But Naru-chan would never wear pink like that. I want baby blue!"

Jiraiya was happy that Naruto accepted the mission so easily… It was good that he was starting to accept responsibility, even if he had to have his ego prodded to activate it. Sometimes he would admit that he really was a good student, always eager to…

…

Did he just refer to himself as Naru-chan?

"Uh… That's good Naruto. I was just wondering… Do you… happen to have any strange hobbies yourself? I mean, you did create a jutsu that turns you body fema-" Jiraiya just barely dodged the pillow thrown at him.

"Just tell me what my mission is!"

Four hours later found Naruto in Sexy no Jutsu form, wrapped in tight red satin with his blond curls falling down his back loosely. His blue eyes glowed in the mirror, and his lips pouted and posed as he modeled his body in different positions.

"Damn you are FINE."

Hands on hips. Hands in hair, twist the legs… Just like that.

_"Super finnneeeeee."_

"Are you done admiring yourself yet?" Naruto jumped as Jiraiya came up behind him and handed him his make-up bag. Jiraiya had gone to the store awhile ago, when he didn't come back right away Naruto started to suspect that he had lost the nerve to go to the cosmetics store without a female companion in sight.

"You should knock you know! Naru-chan deserves her privacy!" Naruto covered his rather ample chest and gave a coy pout to Jiraiya.

"Don't do that at me! And don't speak in third person to me like that. Normally it'd be cute… But it's you! Eh… It's stomach-turning to see such a beautiful woman… and know it's your brain behind those breast's. Anyway's, remember one thing. It's not Naru-chan, it's Kiku-chan. You grew up in a rural village outside of Nara. Majorly rural. Think a population that's the same number of your brain cells." Jiraiya was interrupted for a moment by Naruto growling at him while sloppily putting on his lipstick. "Your grandparents raised you in place of you parents and you are an only child. Make up a tragic story about your parents, get big eyed and tearful if need be. You moved to Nara for work and now you are the cute Kiku-chan, new host at the Kamikochi club."

The whole mission was based on the access to the club. Tsunade had heard of the club only through rumours, and as time went on she found trustworthy sources that could identify it as fact that high ranking Sound villagers and nin's often frequented the club. The nin's themselves were often not that important, or they would not be as foolish to continue a habit of visiting the same place multiple times. The people they were after were the rich lords who funded the Sound's ventures. If they could be identified and managed the Leaf could undermine much of the power that Orochimaru had gained.

Jiraiya could go inside with his long standing reputation and set up a mole, and while they had considered getting a proper kunoichi to complete the mission they couldn't manage to find a properly trained young woman willing to do the job. They would've used an older woman, but Kamikochi sold on the age of its hosts.

They would use Naruto, who was both used to seduction and who was used to his female form being objectified. That was where most kunoichi's would normally fail, as the attention from the older men could be damaging to their pride as strong independent women.

"Do you think I should make my boobs a little bigger? Kiku-chan wants to be a knockout." Jiraiya was fairly convinced that Naruto would have no trouble at all.

* * *

Naruto checked himself once more in a window just one more time. His hair was artfully placed in the regular pigtails, but two ribbons swirled around as ties that matched the red dress. His scars had been covered with make-up, but they remained faint, only creating the impression that his cheeks were a little fatter then they actually were. He had been a bit self-conscious about it before, but Jiraiya said it came across as looking cute, before looking faintly ill about saying anything at all.

When they had first met Naruto had initially gotten Jiraiya to train him using his Sexy no Jutsu, but it seemed as time went on the reality of the person behind the body being Naruto was enough to conflict even the super pervert Jiraiya. He knew many kind of woman he would never have a relationship with, but as long as they were sexy he would admire them. But Naruto's other form could have the face that launched a thousand ships and he still would only remember him making fart noises to make snot nosed little kids laugh.

"Yosh! Let's do it!" Naruto pumped his fist in the air Rock Lee style and began his somewhat tipsy venture across the street in his high heels. The Kamikochi itself included an extensive garden before the actual building, but the grounds were surrounded by a massive red wall and equipped with two burly guards at the gate door. They only stared out of the corner of their eyes as Jiraiya gave them a wave and pulled Naruto through.

Inside large willow trees bent over a wide stone pathway, all leading up to the elegant red Kamikochi with it's angled roof tiles shining under the midday sun. Small ponds and sections of flowers and rocks created a diverse garden that helped to calm Naruto down as he made his way down the path, occasionally grabbing onto Jiraiya if his heel found a certain crevice between the stones below.

"The owner knows nothing, I've only told her you're something of a simpleton, so that should cover most of your mistakes. But try to make a good impression at least, and watch the other girls working before you try any kinda… techniques you might think would work. You can't just take off your clothes and pose like you normally do (with those conveniently placed clouds) and hope they'll fall for your every whim."

"You did."

"Eh?"

"You totally fell for the Naru-chan attack! Back when I was twelve, I just did that and I totally owned you!" He grinned at his teacher and gave him a peace sign.

"Only for a moment."

"No. Total ownage. Hehe." They were in front of the steps now, and Naruto could feel the beginnings of butterflies in his stomach.

"Well, I be leaving you here. Machi-san should be waiting for you inside. You'll recognize her right away; she'll be the one with the enormous pipe and hair so big that it could support wildlife."

"Aren't you going in?"

"Er… no. I owe her a bit of money from our last meeting. She's pretty stingy about paying back your debts and all. Last time I was late she set her dog on me. Stupid tiny yippie thing. Kinda like you! You should get along! Good luck!" With this he slapped Naruto on the back and shoved him through the doors.

"Hey!" He shouted back but the doors swung closed behind him with a foreboding thump.

"Welcome…" A face of horrors loomed in the darkness… Lit up by the light of a pipe…

"AH!" He jumped back and slammed his body on the door behind him.

"The girls these days are sure jumpy… Geez, what's Jiraiya doing sending me idiot amateurs… Feh." The voice gained a proper face as Naruto finally made out the room to be the front coat area, lit up only by two simple candles, but decorated with richly designed carpets on the walls.

"Nashima Kiku, ne? Not bad looking. Your jumpiness could translate to liveliness. He did say you look a little dim…" The old woman, who could only be Machi-san walked right up to him. Naruto tried to resist the urge to climb right up with walls. 4 out of 5 instincts were shouting something between "EVIILLL!" and "This bra is going to give me a massive rash", which was somewhat irrelevant to the current line of thought.

Her face was a circle of wrinkles, out of which two tiny black eyes flashed out with an intensity that even his ex-teammate couldn't have matched. What was scarier was her massive head, covered in intricate tiers of hair that rose her almost past Naruto's height, which was no light feat considering she might've been under 4'0" normally. There were things attached to the thing… Sticks and baubles that swung around whenever she moved her head in any way. It was almost enough to distract him from her hand reaching out and poking his face with her crinkly demon hands.

"Eeehhhh, you'll have to do. I'm a girl short ever since that Naomi attacked poor little Kairi with a poker stick." A poker stick? What kind of girls were these hosts? Naruto scratched out any kind of idea he had to woo one of them out of his head. He had enough scary woman in his life, Sakura and Tsunade coming foremost to his mind (Machi-san was there now as well… She was so scary he wouldn't even try calling her Oba-san. Hell, he'd refer to her as Machi-chan if she insisted) and he certainly didn't need any more.

"Ah… ah… I'll give it my best! Haha, no problems here! I'll never touch a poker stick either! Haha… ha."

"… Farm girls. Come with me, I'll introduce you to the Kamikochi. And keep your mouth shut when I'm talking. I don't care for your questions yet, the only replies I want are 'Yes Machi-san', I won't take any back talking." With this she took out her long wooden pipe out of her tiny lips and blew out an enormous smoke ring that was a faintly blue in color. Naruto caught a glimpse of her yellowing teeth and tried not to grimace.

Following Machi-san into the hall allowed Naruto a full view of the main area of Kamikochi. His first impression consisted of circular tables with lush seating occupied by men in fine suits and hosts. Naruto himself had ended up wearing a sexy red number (he had originally wanted a cute fluffy blue dress, but the pervert-sennin had said no) but the women were clothed in all different styles. Jiraiya had explained that often Host Clubs offered different types, so all sorts of men would be satisfied. And it was true, there was a cool young woman in a dainty Kimono, a cute young girl in a flowing white dress and even a tall elegant young woman in a floor length evening gown. In all there was about seven hosts, but each was entertaining at least two men, all smiling graciously.

"I'll tell you something right now. This isn't a brothel, we're a Host Club. Allowing any hanky panky tells our customers that we are cheap. It's a warning, though Jiraiya told me your grandparents trained you well."

"Er… Yeah. I mean, yes Machi-san."

"Good girl. In fact Jiraiya went on to even say that on the farm you used to wear full body underwear just to protect your chastity. Yes, that's how I would raise my children…"

Full… Full body underwear? Naruto tried to squash the homicidal urge to chase down his teacher and strangle him with said un-existent underpants.

"…Yes Machi-san." He managed to choke out.

"This here is Iori-san, he's the bartender here, but if you have any problems with touchy-feely customers just shout for him." Machi-san gestured at the man behind the lavish bar beside them. He was tall and muscular, with shortly cropped hair and scars across his arms and face. He greeted them with a friendly and open grin to contradict his tough guy appearance.

"What a cute looking girl! Anything you need just tell me, I'll be there in a second."

"Yes Machi-san, I mean, pleased to meet you!" Naruto gave him a short bow, which he returned. With all this manners stuff that he had to do Naruto wondered if Tsunade had a double purpose to sending him here.

As he stood there thinking one of the hosts came up to Machi-san without him noticing. The girl was the one in the spectacular blue kimono, and up close she was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen. But he didn't miss the cold calculating look she threw at him from under her dark thick eyelashes. She might have looked like a doll, but she was probably the crazy one with the poker stick whacking habits.

"What is it Naomi-chan?" Machi-san's voice was filled with more warmth then when she talked to Naruto, and her mouth almost looked like it was smiling. Did they both bond over their abilities to make one want to run fast in the other direction?

"Our regulars are here. Even Satoshi." No honorific. Were these the people he was looking for?

"Lead them to their regular table, and send your current guests over to Miho, she's good with large groups." Naruto followed Naomi with his eyes as she walked towards the doorway. One by one men began to walk in, until the group had to be eight strong. Two of the men's steps were entirely silent against the floor, and something told Naruto that not only were they his targets, but the two he had picked out were definitely shinobi.

The first he saw was plain faced enough, dressed in a simple business suit. It was only his posture that gave him away… The second was wearing a gray yukata, and had his faced turned away from Naruto. Instead he addressed Naomi in soft tones. She simpered at him, and all the hardness in her personality melted away to show a soft beautiful woman.

When he turned Naruto finally saw his face, and seeing the dark eyes, the dark long hair running down the sides of his cheekbones caused Naruto's breath to catch.

He almost looked like…

"Sasuke."


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you so much for the people who reviewed (Shaay, Cloudy eyed Goddess and Blue Redemption, thanks sooo much!)! And even the people who actually read this! I noticed that my summary was initially messed up (I'm not sure how) but I still don't have a very good one up. So I'm glad that people still clicked on it.

This chapter is a bit heavy on the OC introductions, because I did need other people to be Hostesses and clients and whatnot. So if you guys have any problems or suggestions for them that would be cool, because the ones that are now written were just created as I went on and kinda lack planning. I've also noticed that the fic is taking a more mysterious, dramatic turn. That also wasn't my original intent, so I may be changing the genre.

**Summary:** This story is bordering pretty close to AU. Instead of heading back to Konoha after a 2 ½ year long absence Naruto and Jiraiya are assigned a mission to infiltrate a host club. Naruto goes in as a beautiful (albeit a bit slow) hostess to seduce and destroy rich old men who are involved in funding the Sound. He's in for a shock when the clients turn out to be a bit different then he had initially imagined. The story will be eventual SasuNaru, but don't think it'll go the way of poor (emo-brat) Sasuke being tricked by a guilt-ridden Naru-chan into loving his female form. The story is mostly comedy based, and I've kinda cut out important events that would be happening in the universe at the moment. Gaara's kidnapping? Didn't happen. Sexy Sai coming in? Not yet, but I'm considering putting him into the story, if only because he's frickin awesome.

**Disclaimer: **Naruto was created by Masashi Kishimoto and not by me. But just you wait, in five years I'll come up with an idea that will make them go, "Naruto-who?" Yeah. That's right.

**Chapter 2**

He tried to get his mouth to work, maybe push out some perky greeting, but the man's face was so similar it caused his heart to clench uncontrollably.

The differences were noticeable now that he had time to evaluate the person in front of him. The hair was far too light, he would've described it as more of a dark brown. Naruto could still remember Sasuke's blue-black hair glinting under the days sun. The face was a bit to long, but the straight mouth, the pale skin and the mysterious dark eyes remained the same.

"It's always a pleasure to see you at our establishment Satoshi-sama. You bring so much joy to the girls just with your presence alone." Machi-san was sure laying it on thick with that honeyed tone of hers. Naruto couldn't quite catch her face underneath her massive hair… creature, but he was sure she was showing something that might have been construed as a smile underneath her wrinkles.

"Machi-san." He gave her a simple bow and from under his bangs caught Naruto staring at him, the blonde's lips waving like a fish. "New girl? That was fast." Naruto limply raised his hand to wave before catching himself.

"I- I'm Kiku-chan. So pleased to meet you!" He gave a cheery smile, and bounced his head. If this was really Sasuke using a Henge he would see right through his disguise. But Satoshi only nodded his head back. No smirk, or recognition showed, in fact, Satoshi didn't look like he cared at all. His face remained apathetic, and even when accepting a drink from Naomi behind him he didn't show a twitch.

Even if he wasn't Sasuke he still had the whole ice bastard-stick in the ass act down pat.

"Kiku-chan has just come to Nara from her grandparents farm. I don't think she really knows how to entertain anything except pigs. Luckily you get me, ne?" Naomi smirked from behind Satoshi and clutched onto his arm. Naruto tried to remind himself that he was pretending to be a girl, and trying a scissor kick at her head would not be good for the image.

"I suppose so." Satoshi looked down at Naomi and actually gave her a little smile. Naruto tried desperately not to let his eye twitch at all, or show any kind of weakness. Especially in front of what appeared to be pure evil.

"I heard she also wears full body-"

"**LIES!** ALL LIES!"

"…un…" Naomi stopped her sentence and starred. Most of the Kamikochi stopped whatever they were doing to see the new girl make a total idiot out of herself. Naruto slowly lowered his pointing finger and raised his hand to rub the back of his head bashfully. If only God could smote him down where he stood…

"Hehe… Kiku-chan likes to wear full body skin cream to keep it soft… But Kiku-chan would like people to think it's natural. You know? I can't let my beauty secrets leak out!" Naruto cutely fluttered his eyelashes, and everyone in the room slowly turned their heads away. But in front of him even Naomi looked dumbstruck.

"Is you're pool for potential employees getting a bit smaller Machi-san? I don't remember you ever accepting any girls this loud before. She seems to be a bit too vulgar for the Kamikochi standards." Satoshi looked at him truly this time, his blank eyes coolly appraising him from head to toe, and then rejecting him out of hand.

"Who- who's the vulgar one, you _bastard_! **Huh**?" Just to punctuate his point Naruto gave him a full view of his middle finger. This was also the point Naruto realized that he had just bombed his mission. Big time.

Machi-san just smacked her pipe against his head with ferocious speed.

"Ack!"

"Idiot girl! You're hopeless! How dare you insult our guests like that!" Her shadow seemed to loom all the way up the wall. Naruto just covered his ear and groaned. An old woman shouldn't be able to hit like that. It was like she wasn't even human. Naruto wondered again for the one hundredth time how he had gotten himself into this. Jiraiya's words from earlier that day came floating into his head.

_Only something he could do…_

He wondered if this was really just some sort of cruel prank concocted by Tsunade and Jiraiya for all the times he had been disrespectful. If so it had been so easy to lure him in… He could see the two of them somewhere in Konoha drinking and laughing it up while poor little Naruto was stuck in a dress and forced to follow the orders of a four foot tall creature from hell.

"Such low caliber… We couldn't really expect anything from her." Naomi only raised an eyebrow at him, but Naruto could totally tell that inside her head she had an inner-Naomi that had a hand to her mouth and was cackling evilly.

"I find her amusing actually. Most host girls are so proper and constrained. I like it when girls have some spirit to them." The man beside Satoshi had been silent up until that moment. In fact, if he hadn't said anything at all Naruto would have never noticed him at all.

Before when he had walked in beside Satoshi Naruto had picked him out as a possible fellow Shinobi, but nothing else had stood out. It was like he was deliberately fading into the background. This time he took a closer look.

Naruto would've said his face was handsome, in an oddly generic way (not that he ever thought of any guy as handsome. Never ever ever.) His eyes were brown, his hair was black, his suit was probably expensive, but all in all there was nothing there to make you pay any extra attention to him.

"Ohhh Miyagi-sama! You're being far too kind!" Naomi said this teasingly, but her face remained serious. For just a moment she swung her eyes to Naruto and tightened her mouth. It wasn't the cruel judging look from before; instead, a warning. Was she warning Naruto to stay away from her customers? Or warning Naruto that her customers were dangerous? She was still attached to Satoshi, who hadn't responded to him even after he called him a bastard. Naruto couldn't shake the resemblance to Sasuke, but if he was his ex-rival (friend) he certainly wouldn't have stayed quiet like that. At least he would've smoothed out an arrogant 'whatever'… Or anything… Maybe Naruto was being too arrogant himself. Even if Satoshi was Sasuke and saw through his disguise… What proof did he have that Sasuke would even still care about him? How much could he have changed in three years?

"I don't think so. Poor little Kiku-chan here must be unused to our city ways. When she's well and introduced here I would be honored to have her by my side for a night." He took Naruto's hand and kissed it gently. Naruto would smile back, accept it, if only because this man had just saved his mission.

"You're so kind! Kiku-chan didn't know that such important men would care so much about a little ignorant girl like me!" Alright, so no one would possibly fall for something as fake as that…

"It's no problem at all! Anything for a beautiful woman." Naruto giggled and clasped his hands around his cheeks like he was blushing. It seemed to be fine to be cheesy, if this guy kept on rolling out these corny lines.

"I'm glad you approve of her then, despite her obvious faults. Kiku-chan, Miyagi-sama will be you designated guest. Remember you owe your job to him." Machi-san looked less then pleased. Too bad for her! Nanana! Naruto was mentally sticking out his tongue at her and pulling funny faces.

"Um! Kiku-chan will always remember my savior! Just like a knight in shining armor! Teehee!" He curtsied to Miyagi and made a conscious effort not to gag. Naomi began to lead the business men, including Satoshi and Miyagi, to their table at the back. Leaving Naruto with Machi-san. _Alone. _

"Kiku-chan. Just what was it that you did back there?"

_Demon! She's a DEMON!_

"Kiku-chan lost her temper at an important customer?" Machi-san's blew out another smoke ring. Naruto could have sworn it formed into the shape of a skull. "Um… Kiku-chan acted really stupid and awful and deserves nothing more then to be beaten with a stick… _but won't be because Machi-san is kind and compassionate and merciful more then the foolish Kiku-chan deserves?" _This last part was all said rather pathetically.

"Yes. All of that. But you also got that Miyagi-sama to open his mouth. Those men have been visiting for over two months now and he's never shown any interests in our hosts before. Even Naomi-chan, with all her charms, couldn't get him to say anything to her. I guess there really are some men with weird tastes." Machi-san shrugged, but the killer look in her eyes had left, and that was all Naruto cared to know.

"Ah, Miho-chan! You're done with your guests?" One of the hostesses walked up to them with a tired huff. In appearance she was like Naomi; who could grab your attention with only one glance. It wasn't necessarily that her features stood out, but she had an animation in her face and body that made you look. Her style was a short black dress and a ribbon tied cutely around her neck. She had cropped her hair into a short bob, and her brown eyes were outlined in smoky color; a technique that Naruto assumed was to make her eyes stand out.

"Yes! Those men sure know how to tire a girl out! Kasugi-san kept on insisting on arm wrestling to prove his strength; I'm still not sure how I ended up joining myself." She laughed and rubbed her arms. Naruto was glad that at least _she _seemed mildly normal. But then again, with women like Naomi and Machi-san around the club he could never be careful enough.

"If you don't mind Miho-chan, I would like you to finish up showing Kiku-chan around. Introduce her to the other hostesses and try to make sure she opens her mouth up as little as possible. I have another new employee to check out, so I'll be busy for awhile." With this, Machi-san scuttled away, back into the darkness of the front hall. Naruto could only wish good luck to whoever had to meet up with her next.

"Well then! Welcome to the staff of the Kamikochi! I'm Miho-chan, and we're going to be _super-duper_ good friends and write happy notes to each other and giggle all night long! _Oh!_ You're just going to _lurve_ it here!" Alright, so it could get worse. "And I just adore your little cutsy-wittle dress!" She cooed, "I can't get enough of it! Really!" No, this was rock bottom. Truly, he was a barnacle at the floor of the ocean.

"Ye…ah. I like it lots to." He pulled his mouth muscles up into something like a smile. Naruto was fairly sure it came out as more of a man looking into the face of death itself. Not that Miho would've noticed, she was too preoccupied with playing with the frills at the edge of his skirt.

"Let's go meet the others, 'kay?" Miho grabbed his hand in hers. It was the first time he noticed just how small his hands had become, to fit so perfectly inside those of another girls. Miho led him behind the bar and gave a wave to Iori-san before taking him into a back room.

Inside there were seven counters with mirrors above them. Beside each counter was a set of hooks, covered in clothing that Naruto guessed belonged to the girls. Make-up sets lay littered around, and Naruto even saw a strange circular rubber object that he guessed was for putting on blush… or something like that.

Out of the five hosts he knew he hadn't met, only two were sitting inside the changing room. One was a classic looking beauty, with a long chic black dress. She was taller then Naruto was, and her black hair was pulled back into a long pony-tail. She didn't even look away from applying her lipstick, but she gave a tiny jerk of the hand which he assumed was something like an acknowledgment that he existed. The other hostess was currently curling her dyed red hair into perfectly shaped ringlets, and he could see her give him a wink from the mirror.

"Guys! Guess what just happened?" Miho cheerily declared.

"You've finally decided the kindergarten teacher position was for you." The black haired woman snapped shut her lipstick case and turned towards them.

"Machi-san and Iori-san have decided to elope and have massive amounts of children." Her companion murmured as she finished up the area at the back of her hair.

"Godzilla and Mothra are duking it out on the streets." The tall hostess said.

"No, I have a good one guys! Really! We have a new employee! And don't be so silly guys, I would never give up hostess work to be a kindergarten teacher! That's totally unlikely!" Miho giggled.

"Why did you pick that one out? You mean we would seriously have to see Godzilla out there before you quit?" Red head sounded unconvinced.

"No, what's worse is that we have to face the possibility of Machi-san having reproductive organs before all that." There was a collective shudder.

"I believe we should support love in all of it's forms! If Iori-san and Machi-san truly love each other we should be supportive to the max!" Miho pumped her fist in the air, with her eyes shining dramatically. For a second Naruto pictured Gai-sensei's face on her body. He shuddered again.

"We were kidding." Both of the other hostesses said in unison.

"Oh yeah! I should introduce you guys now! Because we are so going to be ultra-friends and have a fantastic time together and fill it with timeless memories! 'Kay guys?"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"Umhum! This here is Kiku-chan! She's not only new to Kamikochi, but she is a new resident of Nara! Treat her well!" Miho presented Naruto with her hands like he was something on display.

"Very cute! I'm Sakurako! I'm a Taurus, and my blood type is AB! Let me bet… Um… I bet you're a Scorpio right?" The red head, now identified as Sakurako tilted her head, and let her newly created curls brush her shoulders.

"I don't know what that means…" He scratched his head. He hoped it wasn't something all girls were supposed to know.

"When were you born?" She asked.

"October 10th." He said.

"Libra then! Uhhhhh… I'm incompatible with Libra's… I dated a Libra once. It turned out he was gay and was cheating on me with my hairdresser. Worst moment of my life, let me tell you." Sakurako shook her head.

_That didn't make any sense! Was she saying guys who were Libra's were all fated to be gay? AHHH! He didn't want to be gay! He was strrraight! STRAIGHT!_

Even if the only person he had ever kissed in his entire life had been male. Not to mention it had been with the prettiest guy he had ever seen.

_Ahh! He didn't just call Sasuke pretty! Nooooooooo!_

"Being a Libra had nothing to do with that." The other woman added, and Naruto tried to calm his speeding heart. "I'm Makoto, I don't know my astrological sign, and I never turned my boyfriend gay." Something about the drawl of her voice gave her the air of being cultured, as compared to someone like Kakashi-sensei who just came off as lazy.

"That's also because you're a lipstick lesbian! You don't even like men!" Sakurako stuck out her tongue at Makoto, who totally ignored her.

"Un. Sakurako you're the only one for me." She said, her face totally straight.

"I will totally support you guys! Don't worry, if your love is pure it has to come into fruition! No matter the obstacles in your way!" Miho crossed her arms, and her eyes began to blaze once more.

"I was kidding. Even if I was a lesbian I wouldn't start a relationship with Sakurako. She might scare me into liking men." Makoto just ducked a projectile shoe thrown by Sakurako and gave her first grin at Naruto. "Nice to meet you Kiku-chan." She waved as she left the room. Sakurako picked up the shoes partner and suddenly grabbed the pieces of circular rubber that he thought was for make-up and stuck them down the front of her dress.

_EH? Boob enhancer? _

"I'm good to go! See you guys out there!" She bounced out of the room, leaving Naruto alone with Miho for the time being.

"Your table is going to be at the far end there, you see that?" Miho pointed at the counter on the right, which had the least amount of clutter on it. "It used to be Kairi's, but as she quit in a hurry she might have left some things here. Just clear the area and you can start using it tomorrow night. I think that's when your going to start your work officially. Tonight was just a test run 'kay? If you need any help at all don't hesitate to call me! I'll be really, really helpful!" She gave him a hug, which Naruto returned gratefully. She was scary, overly perky and reminded him way to much of the fuzzy eyebrow duo, but at least she was genuinely nice.

"Thank you!" Naruto then realized that this was the first real time he had been this close to a girl before. Sure, he had hugged both Tsunade (who was an old hag and didn't count, no matter how big her boobs were) and Sakura, but it was different, and for some reason he didn't feel attracted at all. Was it because he was in female form? Was it affecting his manliness!

"I have to get back to work now 'kay? My life's passion is calling me, and like a moth to a flame I must follow!" She left, and Naruto made his way over to his designated counter to clear it off. From the looks of it Kairi really hadn't taken much when she left. Most of her things were still there, including two dresses and an accessory bag. Naruto started to rummage through it when he found something that really shouldn't have been there. The metal plate felt familiar in his hand, as did the strap of cloth attached.

Out of Kairi's bag he pulled out the headband of a Sound Ninja.

_What is this doing here?_

"What are you doing in there? Hasn't anyone ever taught you the value of personal property?" Naruto shoved the headband back into the bag and span around to see Naomi, the person who was the cause of Kairi's absence standing in the doorway. She glared at him while keeping her arms obstinately crossed, her onyx colored eyes flashing like lightning. He couldn't help but admire her, because even with her lips compressed and her eyebrows drawn she managed to look impeccable.

"I- I wasn't doing anything! Why are you giving me such a hard time? I'm not even doing anything to bother you and you're already looking down on me!" Naruto threw the bag on the floor and shoved his hands onto his hips.

"Stay away from Miyagi. Away from Satoshi. Trust me, it's for your own good." Naomi didn't seem fazed by his outburst, instead she acted like she had expected it and took it all into stride.

"Ha! Afraid I'm going to take your customers away from you?" He gave her a cocky grin.

"Heh, I don't know why I ever expected an idiot like you to understand. You're so dense." She shook her head and walked out, leaving Naruto trembling with rage.

"Who's the idiot? She's the crazy bitch who attacked someone with a poker stick." She attacked Kairi. Who, for some reason was in the possession of a Sound headband.

_Had Kairi been undercover as well? _

Naruto needed to go home and clear his mind. Maybe after talking to Jiraiya he could figure some things out. After all, he already had a connection with the group which was probably the Sound's business men, and by tomorrow he would be sitting with them for the night. How Satoshi fit in he wasn't sure yet. If he really was Sasuke… Naruto decided that he wasn't going to tell Jiraiya about him. Not yet anyways.

He walked out and said goodnight to Iori-san. The other hosts were busy, but he did manage to wave goodbye to Miho (he didn't see Makoto or Sakurako, for which he was mildly grateful) and was stopped by Machi-san who told him to come in at 5:00 the next day. He pushed out the door of the Kamikochi and began his way through the garden when he saw Satoshi sitting by one of the ponds, sitting on one of the rocks and serenely starring at the reflection of the moon on the water's surface.

"It's a nice night. Don't you think Kiku-chan?" He turned his shoulders to get a look at him. Naruto wasn't sure how he knew that it was him that was approaching, but in a way he was happy that he remembered the name.

"Yes. Very pretty. Kiku-chan likes full moons a lot!" He cautiously walked over to the man, who looked so hauntingly like his ex-teammate. Naruto managed to adjust his long legs onto a nearby stone and tried to get himself into the mindset of the girl he was playing, and tried to forget the feelings of a boy who was betrayed and left for dead by his self-proclaimed best friend.

"So do I. But this isn't a full moon tonight. I believe the actual term is Waxing Gibbous. That means it should be full soon, but isn't quite there yet. Not really complete, but it could pass as so couldn't it?" Satoshi turned and gave him a soft smile. Before he knew it Naruto was blushing.

_Sasuke would never have smiled like that at me._

But Naruto had thought about Sasuke smiling like that at him. Maybe after a particularly long training session they would fall down onto soft grass, and both of them would simply turn and give each other those smiles. Facial expressions that would reveal that both of them were just happy to be together. For the first time Naruto was able to admit to himself that he had wanted that close relationship with Sasuke. He wanted to be real best friends, not just rivals who were easily torn apart by their own insecurities.

"Yeah… I don't really understand what you mean about the Waxing thing… But… Complete or not it's still beautiful." Naruto looked up at the sky and sighed into the dark night.

"Yes. So beautiful that I guess even a bastard could appreciate it." He gave a quiet laugh, his shoulders moving under his gray yukata.

"You called me vulgar first!" He stuck his tongue out a bit, but grinned afterwards.

"Sorry. It was wrong of me. I suppose I was just in a bad mood. You'll be with us tomorrow night right? Miyagi was quite excited by you." He didn't look Naruto in the face when he said this, and instead locked his eyes on the ground.

"I'll be there. Count on it! But not just because Miyagi is my customer… I mean… I can't just leave you there with all those old business men and Naomi…" At this he did grow red in the face.

_What was he saying! Was it because he was a LIBRA?_

"Good. I don't want to be left with them either." Satoshi looked at him directly in the eyes once again, which didn't help Naruto state of mind. He just nodded quickly at Satoshi.

"Uh. Goodnight." Naruto tried not to be to obvious about his discomfort and pulled up his skirt to make it quickly to the gate and out onto the street. He wobbled over to the other side and leaned his whole body against the wall there, breathing heavily.

_Just what the hell was going on back there? He was acting like a freaking girl! Sexy no Jutsu could be more dangerous then he could've ever imagined. _

One thing was for sure, he certainly wasn't going to get a lot of sleep that night.


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks to the people who reviewed! Sorry I didn't update sooner. I was stuck for awhile on where I wanted to go. Anyways, onwards!

**Summary:** This story is bordering pretty close to AU. Instead of heading back to Konoha after a 2 ½ year long absence Naruto and Jiraiya are assigned a mission to infiltrate a host club. Naruto goes in as a beautiful (albeit a bit slow) hostess to seduce and destroy rich old men who are involved in funding the Sound. He's in for a shock when the clients turn out to be a bit different then he had initially imagined. The story will be eventual SasuNaru, but don't think it'll go the way of poor (emo-brat) Sasuke being tricked by a guilt-ridden Naru-chan into loving his female form. The story is mostly comedy based, and I've kinda cut out important events that would be happening in the universe at the moment. Gaara's kidnapping? Didn't happen. Sexy Sai coming in? Not yet, but I'm considering putting him into the story, if only because he's frickin awesome.

**Disclaimer: **Naruto was created by Masashi Kishimoto and not by me. But just you wait, in five years I'll come up with an idea that will make them go, "Naruto-who?" Yeah. That's right.

"_Kakashi-sensei is really into this teamwork thing eh? Like he thinks it's really important." _

"_Hn."_

"_We're a team right? The four of us. Of course I would be the leader and all…"_

"_We're a cell, we have three genin under a jounin teacher. So yes, we are a team. Was that the answer you were looking for?"_

"_Arg! You don't get it all!"_

"_Your right. I don't."_

"_Does being teammates make you friends?  
_

"_I don't know. I suppose it's up to you."_

"_I think I would like that. I've never really had any friends before team 7."_

"…_Same."_

"_So… Are **we** friends?"_

"…"

"_Sasuke?"_

"_Sure… If you look at it that way…" _

Naruto tumbled out of his bed mid-snore, his hard head meeting cold ground.

"Gah!" Slowly he opened his eyes to the morning's sunlight and tried to awaken his body from it's slumber. Somehow he had managed to pull the rest of the bedding down with him, leaving Naruto inside a nest of blankets and sheets. Checking the broken alarm clock on the nearby shelf told him that the current time was twelve in the afternoon. Jiraiya must have left him behind to start his own day, probably ditching his student in favor of his favorite hobby. Apparently Nara was also the home of a highly extensive, hole-filled bath house. Something about the peeping repelled him more then usual, but he could attribute that to spending an evening in the form of a woman.

True to his prediction from the night before Naruto did not have restful night of sleep. For the first half of the night he span back and forth, flopping his arms and legs into different positions in a pitiful attempt to find something comfortable. But every time he would stop he would see himself (Kiku-chan) blushing in front of Satoshi, who in his dreams didn't just look like Sasuke, but was him. It was painful that the imitation was so kind, when the real thing was so cruel, and would have never been capable of a conversation so sweet.

Naruto threw his constraints off of himself and crawled back into his bed. Lack of sleep made him lethargic, but he knew that he would need to be on the ball today. Yesterday, despite the difficulties was really only like a test run, and tonight there was going to be no room for mistakes. Like fingering a customer. Or screaming at the owner. Or planning to murder your coworker. Because, honestly, who would miss Naomi? He would also need to do something about her… Did she see him with the Sound headband?

He remembered that before he did anything else today Naruto had to find out about Kairi. She was the hostess that no one seemed upset about her leaving, yet she remained on everyone's lips. Well, that made sense, as Kiku-chan was her replacement. But it was a lead that he had to follow.

Naruto pulled on a spare shirt from the foot of his cot and made his way across the linoleum floor to the fridge. As he pulled out some milk (probably expired) he tried to figure out where to start. It was possible she might be listed under the telephone book, but he didn't know her surname. Like most of the hostesses she kept her privacy by using only her given name with a suffix. He spat out the milk as soon as it touched his mouth. As he poured out the rancid white liquid he realized he had no threads that he could follow up without causing attention to himself.

Jiraiya could do it himself anyway, because hadn't he been to the club before? He must've seen Kairi at least once, and that was one more time then Naruto ever had.

"Where the hell has that old man gone off to?" He searched the vastly empty fridge once more for something to eat. Inside he found a moldy piece of cheese, a can of beer, and with some inspection on his part, he found a plastic bad with a pair of socks inside. _Those aren't mine…_

"Ran out of Ramen yesterday too… Ehhh… Shopping." He pulled his pants that he had thrown into the dark corner of the room and jumped into the pale denim. He checked the insides of his pockets and found a measly five hundred yen. That would buy him maybe two bowls of the crappy brand of Ramen and some fresh milk.

As a precaution (because people were always on the lookout for bad hygiene) he checked in the mirror to make sure his hair wasn't in clumps, or his teeth rotting, but instead he found that his face was a nasty smear of lipstick and black smudging around his eyes.

"Ewwwwww… Good thing I checked."

So, after cleaning his face, moving around his hair a bit, and enjoying the feel of manly man pants he decided he was fully decked out to leave the awful dwelling that Jiraiya was still paying for on Konoha's expenses. If he was going to waste tax money on women Naruto figured he would be kind enough to get them a nice pad as well, but Jiraiya had never listened to his complaints before. He doubted that he would start now. Naruto left the room and managed to remember to lock the door behind him. Not that there was really anything all that valuable inside, unless you counted the rough draft of the next Icha Icha Paradise volume. He passed the sleeping man at the front desk and exited into the streets.

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The Hotel (if it could be called that) was a remnant of the age when Nara was still a town that was struggling to gain a proper economical foothold. When business started to boom everything old was torn down for newer, better, safer buildings. But the Hotel remained, because it was still owned by a family that had been one of the first settlers in this place. It was dilapidated and smelled funny, but it had the benefit of being set right in the core of the city. The market would not be far from here, and if he moved quickly through the midday crowd he could be back in under five minutes.

The store workers gave him a smile and a wave as he walked in. It was so different from Konoha, where courtesy meant simply being ignored, as opposed to being kicked out. Naruto grabbed his items and moved towards the cashier. In front of him two middle aged women seemed to be gossiping together.

"Did you hear about the Yamada girl running away?" The first woman was shifting through the vegetables with her hands, squeezing them to check for firmness. It was like she didn't realize that she was ruining them for everybody else. Poor tomato's… Tragic victims to the merciless hands of housewives everywhere… _Bad Naruto! Stop feeling sorry for inanimate objects!_

The older, slightly friendlier woman seemed to stop and think for a moment. "You mean Yamada Kairi right? Her mother was always bragging about her looks to everyone. I always thought that my daughter was much prettier, but you just don't tell people that." Naruto stopped his feet, and angled himself towards the vegetables himself. It seemed likely that Yamada Kairi was the very same Kairi-chan he was looking for. It was going to be troublesome if she had run away though…

"Yes, the one who worked at the Kamikochi. A short while ago she was attacked by one of her fellow workers. Probably a tiff over some man, or something petty like that."

"Of course. Yes, I remember. Sakuishi-san told me that the girl had come home with a nasty split on her face. He thought she might quit her job because of it. Girls that make a living from their looks seem to have the saddest ends. I thought she might end up at one of the factories." Naruto tried not to wince at this. He wondered if any of the other girls were stuck where they were now, unable to go any other direction. But then he remembered Miho and the others, and he couldn't bring himself to be worried about them. They weren't exactly the picture of suffering woman. Except perhaps Sakurako, who apparently had the curse of turning men gay.

"There's more to it you know. She didn't just run because of the facial wound." Housewife #1 stopped for a moment and let the other woman take the bait.

"What do you mean? Was she pregnant or something?" Housewife #2 looked thrilled at the prospect of a good scandal.

"Oh no! Apparently she said that she had been threatened, but it wasn't by the girl who had attacked her. What do you make of that?"

"I bet it was the owner. Machi-san. Devil woman from hell. You remember when she was younger… She tried to steal all of our husbands away from us. Thought she was so pretty…" Were they really talking about the same Machi-san? Who looked like she was two centuries old? They had to be talking about her daughter. Or… maybe her great, great… Great granddaughter.

"Could be… But what could've been important enough to drive a harmless girl out of town? I bet it's something big… Oh! There's Shiba-san, I'm heard she knows something about the mayor's recent affair… Come on, let's go!" By this time Naruto had made it to the front of the line and the women changed aisles in the pursuit of tawdry details. The cashier lady behind the counter gave him a cheerful smile that showed teeth as he paid for his cheap merchandise.

"Thanks for shopping at Seibu! Come again!"

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He entered his room to find Jiraiya back from who knows where and furiously writing on their desk. His entire visage was lightly red, and Naruto could only barely catch what he was mumbling under his breath.

"Hehe… Oh… It's not a sin to enjoy.. hehe… Yes, that's right, those legs…" Naruto's fingers formed a tightly clenched fist, as his eye began to twitch as well.

"AH! Pervert-Sennin! You snuck into the women's bath's again!" He shook his finger at him, while Jiraiya only shrugged.

"You're just jealous I didn't take you with me. Seriously, I should've. You're must be old enough by now to appreciate a beautiful woman." Jiraiya stopped at this and then snorted. "Then again, considering what you were doing last night you might be to preoccupied with _being _a beautiful woman. I hope Tsunade realizes what this could be doing to your precious masculinity. Imagine what that teammate of yours would say! That… Sakura right? Didn't you have a crush on her?"

"Eh? Leave Sakura-chan out of it! Don't you dare ever, ever tell her about this! I'll kill you! I-" Naruto realized that his face was becoming painfully red at this point. He couldn't even imagine what he would do if Sakura knew that he had put on make-up and a dress, just the same way she would. Maybe they could do it together one day though… And frolic through a flower field… Naruto realized what he was thinking and his face become like a fantastic red sunset.

_Nooooo! LIBRA attack!_

"You'll what? Screech at me some more?"

Naruto pulled back his cheeks with his fingers and stuck his tongue through his teeth. "Nuuuuuuhhhh!" In all honesty Naruto wasn't sure what he would do when he saw Sakura next. To him she had been his crush for so long, but before he left he realized that somewhere along the way their relationship had changed. But he knew, that no matter what, she would always remain one of his most precious people. Which, of course, meant that she could never know that he had cross-dressed for a mission. Ever. Screw frolicking in fields of flowers.

"I've found out something about the girl I replaced at the Kamikochi," Naruto forced himself to remember what he had originally planned to say to Jiraiya, "She ran away, probably to a factory near by. I guess because someone at work threatened her. The people who were talking about it were saying it might be Machi-san, but I bet it was Naomi. I think maybe Kairi found out something from the business men and Naomi wanted to run her out."

Jiraiya stopped his writing and placed his inking pen to his lips. "Are you certain that Naomi is working with the Sound?"

"Well… I have no proof. But she seems to be familiar with them. And she seems pretty intent to keep me away from the group." Of course, her being a massive bitch had nothing to do with his judgment of her. At all. Nada.

"Alright keep your eyes open for her. But staying close to Miyagi is still top priority. I also might suggest finding out if any of those guests had Kairi as their designated hostess. I'll try to find out where she went on my end."

"Hai!"

A few hours later found Naruto in full combat costume. Tonight Naruto was able to wear the blue dress that he had originally envisioned on his disguise. Not that he often thought that much about what woman were wearing. Not at all.

Naruto just always used to admire how nicely some light skirts could look blowing in the wind, like flower petals… Or how the right color in a shirt could make a persons face glow… Eh? What was he thinking! He didn't care about the clothes! He was an adolescent boy! If he had his way they wouldn't be wearing clothes!

He always thought about beautiful naked women! Clothes optional! Totally straight male… stuff! But the frills were _so pretty…_

Said dress was a lovely pale color, with an empire style waist that was accented by a simple ribbon. The skirts were layers of iridescent sheets of fabric that ended with frills on each piece that would curl out near the bottom. Naruto put the dress on almost a half an hour before he had to leave just so he had the freedom to prance happily around the hotel room and feel the skirt move. Of course he was mocked endlessly by his teacher, but Jiraiya just didn't understand him.

_Frilly… Cute… _

He also let down his hair this time, deciding to go without the traditional pigtails that Naruto was generally so fond of placing on his Sexy no Jutsu form. He wanted to look as sweet and non-spy like as possible tonight. Naruto was curious to see if Satoshi maybe would like it…

_No! Wait! He didn't care what he thought at all!_ IT WAS FOR THE MISSION! MISSION! THINK NAKED WOMEN!

Alright. He was totally ready to go now. His intense manliness would have to be put on the shelf for now. The nighttime was Kiku-chan's time.

"Yosh!"

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"Kiku-chan! I'm so glad our paths are meeting, here on this most auspicious day! Isn't the sky super blue today? Don't you think?"

"Ah… Hi Miho-chan." Naruto gave her a weak smile. He had been standing outside the gates of the club before he saw Miho walking towards him with a skip in her step. Naruto still wasn't quite into the Kiku-chan persona yet, but just Miho's presence was enough to remind him just how irritating an overly peppy-person could be. Miho was wearing a Mandarin style dress, though still in black. But even the darkest colors seemed to glow when the wearer was as perky as she was.

"Kiku-chan could hardly sleep because she was so excited to go to work the next day! I'm going to work really hard to make my grandparents proud!" Well, take that. He could be equally grating if he put his mind to it.

"Oh super duper! I'm so glad that I've found someone who likes this job as much as I do! Let's go and make everyone as happy as we can, 'kay?" Miho linked arms with his and the two of them entered the Kamikochi together. Naruto only slowed down once to give a lingering look towards a certain pond.

"Hello everybody!" Miho threw her arms wide open as she strode into the main building. Naruto gave a cute double wave with his fingers.

"Hi Miho-chan!" A group of men sat at a nearby table gave her enthusiastic waves back. They were all middle-aged and in business suits, and from the look of their red faces were already well on their way to being drunk at 5:00 PM.

"A new girl!"

"Cute!"

"NEW GIRL!"

"Huzzah!"

"Will you bear my child?"

"Eh?"

"Shut up Naoto!"

Naruto gave them a bow with extra speed, just so he could get his hair to bounce in a cute way. "Pleased to meet you all! I'm Kiku-chan, and I hope that we will get along well!" All the men raised their drinks to her and cheered.

"To Kiku-chan!" They gave their hearty welcome and began to drink again. "Play some music for us Miho-chan!"

"Of course, just let me find my shamisen." Miho left for the hostess's change room, apparently to retrieve her instrument.

"Why doesn't Kiku-chan join us!"

"Yeah! Come on, sit down." They moved so their was room for Naruto to sit down.

"Oh dear! I don't really think that Kiku-chan will be able to." Naruto gave them a big pout. "I have work to do, though it makes me so sad that I won't be with you all."

"Your not working yet! Hey, and afterwards you could come out with us… Well, you could come to-"

"She's not going anywhere." Naomi was suddenly beside him, her face again looking like she could emit death ray's from her eyes with little to no effort. It was odd that she wasn't acting friendly in front of guests though…

"Maybe Kiku-chan will! Naomi-chan is just a little jealous that you guys haven't asked her out yet." Naruto gave his irate companion a phony smile that hid his eyes. Naomi glared at him under her thick black lashes.

"Trust me. I'm not." Naomi wrapped one of her arms around his and with deft little fingers gave him a quick pinch.

"Ah! What was that for?" He whispered in her ear. Naomi just pinched him again and then leaned over to whisper back.

"We have guests tonight. Unless you want to entertain these low life's some more. I'm sure they would appreciate your little flirting more then someone proper like Satoshi." Naruto gave her a what he would call a subtle glare and resisted the urge to deck her one. Naomi played dirty! Did she know about him and Satoshi at the pond?

The men cut in then, not realizing the current tension running between the two hostess's, "Poor Naomi-chan, if you were feeling left out why didn't you tell us? We would've invited you out long ago. Just think about it, both you and Kiku-chan could have a lot of fun together. Not to mention the two of you are stunning to look at when you stand next to each other. You almost look like the sun and the moon with your coloring." Naruto gave a sidelong glance at Naomi's face and had to silently agree. Naomi's eye and hair were ink black, and her skin was pale and flawless. Her Kimono tonight was a blood red, which brought her whole look together. With his own features Naruto knew that he came off as bright and shining, and the two contrasted enough that even a drunk could see it.

"Neither of us are going. Though I'm sure Miho-san will be more then happy to escort you where ever you wish to go. Now, I'm sorry for being so cold. Maybe another night I can make it up to you myself." If the men were affronted by Naomi's cold personality it was apparently soothed over as she have them a beautiful smile that made the best of her stunning looks. Naruto felt his heart beat loudly, because just for a moment he couldn't help but be taken in by her expression.

Miho returned with her shamisen and sat down in the spot created for Naruto originally. The men forgot about the other two and crowded around as Miho began a play a soft tune.

"You know, I might have actually wanted to go out with them later. What makes you think that you can answer for me?" Naruto was still in locked arms with Naomi, who was already looking grumpy again.

"Did you seriously want to go to some seedy bar with scum like that? Don't you have any pride?"

"I have tons of pride! I have an ocean of pride, brimming with great… uh… pride-le-ness… ness. Yeah." Naruto tried to pretend that that last sentence wasn't total gibberish.

"Then don't accept offers from people like that. Ever. A person as stupid as you would totally get fooled just because someone was being nice to you. You're too trusting." Naomi stopped abruptly and then shut her mouth, as if she was trying to trap out anything further from coming out.

"Are you trying to give me sisterly advice or something. Kiku-chan is so happy!" Then Naruto gave her arm a squeeze, which caused Naomi to wrench her limb away.

"Our guests will be here any minute. If you do anything to get in my way…" She reached over and gave him another pinch.

"Ah! Would you stop that?" Naruto swatted her hand away just as Miyagi and Satoshi made their way into the main room. There were only two other men with them, as compared to the larger group of the night before. Both were much older then the other two, with traditional robes and the ever present intricate facial hair of rich looking old guys. Machi-san (from where ever she had been skulking before) was chatting with one of the old men, and fluttering a fan furiously. From his own vantage point Naruto could've sworn that he saw her wink at him.

_Icky!_

"Let's go greet them. And remember, your customer is Miyagi-san, who for some reason finds you attractive. Pay attention to his needs… But…" Naomi slowed down here, and looked unsure for the first time that Naruto had met her, "Don't… Don't take him up on any offers to do anything outside the Kamikochi. This is serious, it isn't like those other guys. Miyagi might like you, but he isn't a good person."

"And you are?" At this Naomi jerked her head up and stared at him as if she had been slapped. "What? I heard you hit some girl with a poker stick." Naruto just shrugged. Naomi looked away from him and back to their incoming customers.

"Ah, yeah. She was annoying." He grimaced. She didn't sound regretful at all.

"Does that call for cutting her face?" He didn't mean to let it out that he knew that, but he needed… and kinda wanted to know why Naomi would do that to another hostess.

"Her face? I didn't go anywhere near it… Wait… Where did hear about that?" But before Naruto could come up with what would've been a totally obvious and awful lie he was thankfully saved by the appearance of Miyagi and Satoshi (plus guests, minus demon owner Machi-san) who gave them polite nods. Naruto tried not to look at Satoshi, who was talking to the older man in blue beside him. The night before he had his hair in a short pony-tail, this tonight he had left it sweeping across his shoulders. He fought down a blush and bowed beside Naomi.

"Who are these lovely young women? Are they really going to serve us? Oh, wait until my wife hears about the Kamikochi…"

"Kobayashi-san, I'm not sure if that's the best idea… You don't think your wife will be upset to hear you went to a host club?" The man in blue who was talking to Satoshi before nodded in agreement to the other unknown man's remark.

"I suppose so."

"I don't think your wife would have to worry about us… Kobayashi-san. Both me and my companion only aim to make your stay in Nara as pleasant as possible. I'm sure your fine wife would understand." Naomi waved away with his concerns with her smooth voice. Naruto raised an eyebrow at her sudden show of manners. But he recalled the day before she had been just as cute and irritating as Naruto had been aiming for himself. "I am Naomi, and I will be with you for the night. Anything you need, anything at all I'll be _so_ happy to do it for you!" She giggled at the end, causing Naruto to cringe from the sound. Before it wouldn't have been weird to hear her do her secretly evil laugh, but now he couldn't help but think it was a bit out of character from the person he had just been talking too. But really, wasn't he faking too?

"And I'm Kiku-chan! If you want you can even call me Kikukiku! Cute, ne? I'm really new, so you four will be… my firsts…" He shyly turned his eyes away and covered his cheeks with his hands like he was blushing.

_Wow… He was really laying on thick._

But it was working, because both new men were turning a bit red themselves. Satoshi gave her a little smile, which turned Naruto's fake blush into a full blown blood rush to his cheeks.

_He noticed me! Yay!_ No. BAD! AH! NAOMI'S GLARING AT ME AGAIN!

"Well, It's certainly an honor Kiku-chan. I'm glad that we get to share your first time. At best, you'll probably never forget us. That makes me happy." Miyagi spoke for the first time of the evening, with all the chivalry of the night before.

"Oh, Miyagi-san. It wouldn't matter when I met you! I'm sure I'd always remember you!" Except not, because if Naruto wasn't sure Miyagi had something to do with the mission he was sure he would've mistaken him for a piece of furniture.

"Really? I feel the same way. I've only known you for two days now, but you remained vivid in my mind all of last night." Naruto tried not to burst out laughing. They were speaking like out of some bad romance movie. Any moment now the character of Kiku was going to burst out into dramatic tears and pronounce her eternal love for her generic looking leading man.

Not that he ever watched romance movies. In Naruto's version of the film just before Kiku would kiss Miyagi a giant centipede from the planet UB313 who would eat Naomi and Machi-san after destroying the Kamikochi. Kiku would then morph into a giant robot and save the earth. Then break up with Miyagi, because she don't need no MAN!

"Kiku-chan? Kiku-chan? Are you alright, you looked a bit distracted there."

"Uh? What? Robot?" He could just hear Naomi faintly say '_idiot_' under her breath as Naruto finally jumped back to reality.

"Ah… Sorry! I was really touched by what you said… I guess I was just thinking of you too intensely." He looked away from Miyagi again and touched his hand to his (ample) chest. Naomi started to cough loudly. Underneath the hacking noises there was something that sounded like 'bullshit' to Naruto.

"We should get a table and get something for Naomi to drink." Satoshi walked over to Naomi and gave her a pat on the back. She even grinned at him and the two of them began to walk towards the area they had been yesterday. Naruto felt Miyagi sliding his hand around his own. He tried to shout something like "cooties!" and let Miyagi lead them behind the other couple.

Satoshi and Naomi were talking to each other, but even though Naomi was smiling something about it seemed awfully tense. Naruto couldn't deny that it was likely that Satoshi was probably part of the Sound, and he knew he shouldn't be open with them. Either of them. No matter if Naomi wasn't as bad as he thought, or if Satoshi looked like his ex-teammate.

Miyagi was even more of an enigma, a man who stayed inconspicuous on purpose, but still flirted earnestly with a hostess. Was he really interested in Kiku-chan? Or did he notice that something was off with him as well?

When the five of them were sitting the two unknowns introduced themselves. Naruto tried to pay attention, because the main goal of the mission was to find out the where the funds were coming in from for Sound.

The excitable one in blue was Kobayashi Daisuke, who also was the father of two adorable and talented twin girls and loved his wife more then anything. No mention of where he was from.

The second in gray was named Fujioka Obashi, who wasn't married, but instead only said that he enjoyed his work to much to have anything else in his life. That meant he would probably mention what it was some time tonight.

Naruto tried to listen as the four men talked about tourist spots in the Thunder country while managing to put in clueless comments from time to time to keep up appearances. Naomi on the other hand got right into it, listing prices of tours, dates of festivals and anything that any traveler might want.

"We've also heard that there's quite a theater here in Nara. They were showing the recent installment of the 'The Adventures of Princess Fuun.' My daughters wanted to see that one, but my wife wanted to see that other foreign film… What was that called. Something to do with those silly machines in the air…" Kobayashi rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully.

"Frogs on a Plane?"

Naomi pinched him from under the table. "It's Snakes on a Plane."

Naruto pouted and rubbed his knee. "It should be Frogs though. They're so much cooler."

"But they aren't scary." Naomi rolled her eyes and Satoshi laughed. Which made Naruto happy, so he ignored Naomi's ignorant comment. Frogs _were so _scary! She had obviously never seen Gamabunta drunk.

"Do either of you two young ladies play an instrument?" Fujioka had found himself a comfortable spot on the other side of Naruto, which might have been nice for him, but Naruto felt a bit like placing some more space between them.

"Ah! Sorry… Kiku-chan's family could never teach her… I spent all my time helping out my family." He gave out a weary sigh and Miyagi patted the back of her hand.

"I play the Shamisen. If Kiku-chan would be so helpful as to help her friend out she could go and get it for me from the change room?" Naomi leaned against Satoshi who wasn't even looking at her.

"Eh? Why the hell- I mean, why can't you get it for yourself Naomi-chan?" He finished in a sweet voice.

Naomi looked from side to side, and it became obvious that the chairs of Fujioka and Satoshi were blocking her way out.

"Because I know you're such an incredibly sweet girl!" She put her head on her hands and gave him a plucky smile.

"Fine." Naruto waved to Iori-san at the bar before entering the change room. Sitting there was a blank faced Makoto and a weeping Sakurako.

"-and… hic He just hic He just walked up and kissed him! My dream man! He just… I'm cursed! Cursed!" She grabbed a handkerchief and blew into it loudly.

"Sakurako. Let me get this straight. You were getting a haircut… and there was an attractive well dressed man there… Was he the hairdresser?"

"Huh? U-uh. How-how did you know he was the hairdresser?"

"Ah… Cardinal rule! Assume all hairdressers, male fashion designers, make-up specialists and musical actors to be gay unless told otherwise! What did you expect? He was well dressed! He cared about his hygiene! Have you ever considered that it's not you who turn men gay, but that you're just attracted to gay men?" Makoto sighed into her hands.

"But… But… He was so preeetttttyyy!" With this she was lead into another set of fresh sobs.

"Uh… Did I miss something?"

"No." Makoto gave him a withering look.

"Yeeeees! I lost another one to the evils of same-sex relationships! Life is so cruel! I really do turn men gay! I'll be unhappy and I'll marry some guy who's sleeping with the pool boy on the side!"

_Was she really cursed? Maybe it was Sakurako's fault that he kept on blushing whenever Satoshi was near!_

"Don't take her seriously. This happens all the time because she keeps on going for the girly-boys." Makoto shook her head. "Come on, let's get something to drink, I'm sure I'd prefer dealing with you drunk then when you're crying." She lifted the pitiful Sakurako from her chair and the two of them stumbled out into the main room.

Didn't the two of them have work to do or something? So far he had only seen them slacking off in the changing room, and now they were set on a drinking binge. Why couldn't _he_ be like that?

Naruto sighed and went over to Naomi's desk to pick up her elegant Shamisen that was leaning up against the side. He turned to see his own desk where he had seen the headband before. He should bring it back to the hotel…

Naruto didn't have to go far to see the feet from behind the desk. A body was covered by Kairi's old dresses, and the legs were shaking.

He tentatively lifted the dresses to reveal a mop of brown hair and the young face of what had to of been an attractive woman once. If not for the long scar that ran from her upper lip, through the left cheek and over her eyebrow.

"You're…"

"Don't! Don't tell them I'm here!"


	4. Chapter 4

Sorry about being so incredibly late with this chapter! I totally had writers block, and I was so busy with my schoolwork. Anywho, here's chapter four. It's like, half the length of the other chapters, so sorry about that too.! And thank you to every one who reviewed!

Also, I was working on another fic! The second, and last chapter of that one will probably be up before chapter five of this one. It's actually from Sasuke first person POV, and is an AU set in our world. But not a high school fic! Even though they are _in _high school, the whole thing just takes place in one day on the weekend.

**Disclaimer: **Naruto was created by Masashi Kishimoto and not by me. But just you wait, in five years I'll come up with an idea that will make them go, "Naruto-who?" Yeah. That's right. 

_Chapter 4_

"Kairi-chan!" Naruto dropped to his knees to get a good look at the small woman. She must have been very pretty once, but in the short time she had been gone her hair was a mess, her skin was a sickly color and her clothes were so dirty he couldn't even specify the original shade. The scar itself looked so irritated and awful, such angry red lines down Kairi's upset face.

"Please! You can't let them know I'm in here! I didn't sneak in to do anything bad at all. I'm sorry." She wrapped her thin arms around her knees and shoved her body further into the corner.

"You don't have to say sorry… Just… Who are you hiding from? I can… I can help you." Naruto tried to look as open as possible. He smiled and held out his hand to Kairi who didn't take it, but relaxed visibly.

"I just want my bag, and then I'll leave. That's it. You don't… don't have to report me. I used to work here."

"Alright. That's fine. You can take your bag with you, but can't you tell me who you're so afraid of? I won't hurt you, I promise." He gave her his good guy pose, which left him with a blank look. Naruto supposed that it wasn't quite as effective when you weren't wearing green spandex.

"I can't tell you. Naomi would… They would…" She looked around the room with growing panic.

"Is Naomi the one behind this? She gave you that scar didn't she?"

"_I already told you that I didn't."_

"Eh?"

"NAOMI!" Kairi leapt from her corner and practically threw her body at Naomi, who stood near the doorway holding her shamisen.

_What the hell is going on?_

"Get off me! I told you to leave and never come back!" But Kairi just began to cry and only tightened her thin arms around Naomi's neck. Naomi tried to pry off the sobbing woman's arms, but she was stuck on like glue. Naruto himself was feeling a bit confused. Why was Kairi hanging on to the person her attacked her? Was she some sort of masochist?

"I came back to get the headband…"

"You didn't have to. I told you before that it proves nothing. You were supposed to have left the city by now, Kairi."

"But I wanted to help you!"

"I don't need your help!"

Naruto felt that interceding at this point was necessary. "Uh. Guys? Hello? Explanations? Details? You guys lost me at some point." Actually, they had never had him. He fell off the band wagon before it even started. Kairi turned around to look at him, furiously rubbing her eyes, and making her scar stand out more with the aggravation.

"Who is she? Is she safe?" She clutched onto the front of Naomi's kimono, who swatted away her hand with a surly look.

"Don't worry about her, she's trustworthy enough. Kiku's mind is so open that any kind of deep thinking will just pass right through."

"Hey! I don't quite know what that means, but I won't stand for it! I won't have you playing mind games with me!"

"Moron."

"What?"

"The moron says what?"

"What? Who are you? Just what is your involvement in this place?"

Naomi rolled her eyes, like she was irritated with the question. "I would ask you the same thing. Don't you think you're giving away a little too much when you drop your farm girl act?"

_She has a point. Damn!_

"Ahahaha! Kiku-chan is just so confused! She doesn't know what to do, with all these girls hiding in corners and scary ladies hitting people with poker sticks who are really mean to her and act all really irrational and glare at her while Kiku-chan is just trying to make her way in a cold-hearted world that would send any young woman out on her own to fend for herself while there are bad men who would take advantage of her! A tiny girl like myself can never be to careful you know! But I decided to come to the Kamikochi because it was always my dream as a little girl to be the greatest hostess of all time! The undefeated queen host! But my grandma always said that-"

"Shut up!" Naomi snapped. "Don't you think it's a little to late for acting?"

Naruto just blinked at her owlishly. "Who's acting?"

"Naomi, I'm really scared…" Kairi stood and wrung her hands, her eyes shifting furtively towards the entrance. It didn't take long for footsteps to be heard, heralded by the click of high-heels.

"Hide!" Both Naruto and Naomi flung Kairi behind her dresser with a rough thump. Miho walked in to see the two of them awkwardly moving their bodies to blind her to the badly hidden woman in the corner.

"Huh? What are you two doing?" She didn't look all that suspicious, but Naruto was sure Naomi would give them away by saying something stupid. Because Naruto would totally never make a mistake like that.

"WE'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING WEIRD!" He shouted out after seconds of silence. Well, he _almost_ never made mistakes like that.

"Really? I'm just glad you guys look like you've made friends! That makes me so happy!" Miho clapped her hands together with a satisfied look. "But really, what are you guys doing? I heard a weird noise coming from here… Like you guys were having a fight! And I was so worried because anger only causes hate… and hate is such an awful feeling. Life should be full of love!" She finished her passionate speech with a fist in the air.

"We were…" Naomi stopped to think.

"We were practicing! Um… We were practicing our duet! Yup! The two of us are going to showcase our musical talent. Naomi's lovely fingers are going to strike up a tune… and I'm going to sing!"

"You're going to sing?" Miho asked.

"_You're _going to sing?" Naomi asked.

"Of course! I can serenade animals into friends! I can tame the heart of the coldest man with my luminous vocal cords."

"Oh! That's so cool! I wish I could serenade animals! Oh! It would be so neat! What are you going to sing?"

"Yeah. I'm wondering about that too. _Partner._" Somehow, Naomi found it possible to even make that sound like a death threat.

"I'm thinking… '_You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman_,' Cool, hey?"

"Yes! I love that song!" Miho giggled.

"No, you can't even play that with a shamisen! Idiot!" She was gripping the handle to the instrument so hard that Naruto thought it might snap under the pressure.

"Then I guess you'll just have to sing along with me!"

"Over my dead body!"

"Come on! Let's see… I'll start, and you join in as we go along." Naruto smiled and took a few deep breathes. He only knew the song because he had caught Sakura singing it to herself whenever she was in the bathroom in the morning. He could remember he and Sasuke used to have to lay in the adjacent hotel room and still hear her off-pitch voice from her shower. Naruto wasn't sure what he sounded like himself… But it couldn't be that bad… Could it?

"You know what, Kiku-chan? I'm rather nervous about singing in front of someone else. I think we need to practice in private." Naomi said sternly.

"I never took you for the shy type. But that's really adorable Naomi-chan! I'll leave you two alone then. Don't get into any trouble!" Miho giggled and left the room, allowing both Naruto and Naomi to relax their tense bodies.

Naomi glared at him. "_You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman_? Were you serious?"

"Totally," He responded cheerfully.

"Well, now we have to do something about getting Kairi out." Naruto jerked his thumb over to the corner that Kairi was still curled up inside.

"What's this '_we_' you speak of?"

Naruto's fell open. After all of this she still didn't trust him? "The two of us could totally team up! We could be like a super-hero and sidekick! I go in and do cool stuff, and you can come in and cleanup after me!" He placed his arms akimbo and grinned.

"Are you insinuating that I'd be the sidekick?" She looked mildly offended.

He gave her a warm pat on her back. "Well, not all of us can be the main character."

"Do you even know what I'm doing here? You'd just mess things up, and you'd do it without even realizing where you went wrong. No. No way."

"Come on! What country are you from? Are you a freelance shinobi? I'm from… Hehe, I probably shouldn't tell, eh? But I don't think you're that bad of a person. You helped out Kairi right?" Naruto grabbed her hand and shook it tightly. Maybe it was like a re-introduction to someone who was a potential ally.

"Idiot, don't tell people so much about yourself." Despite her words, she tightened her grip on his hand, and for a moment they stood there, linked by their entwined fingers. He smiled, and the grin that Naomi shot back was so brief and light that Naruto could've mistaken it for never existing. But there it was, and it was genuine enough for him.

"We should get Kairi out of here." He slowly unwrapped his hand, which Naomi dropped as soon as she noticed she had attached herself to him in some way. Her arm jerked back to her side roughly, and she looked to the side with a frustrated look written across her flawless face.

"Un. Yeah." He kept watching, but her eyes avoided his and he could see that her face was further flushed then he had ever seen it before. Behind them Kairi finally lifted herself from her curled position and moved her loose limbs towards them slowly. She was still looking upset, but in her hands she was now holding the Sound headband tightly in her hands.

"I'm so sorry that I've caused all this trouble… But… I'm going to take this with me, so if anything happens to you, or if anything happens to you both there will be someone who has something to prove." She held it to her chest, and smiled at them. Her scar twisted her facial features, but the joyful expression made her face radiant. "I'm glad that Naomi won't be doing this alone anymore."

"I'm still doing this alone." Naomi said with a scoff.

"I still don't even know what she's doing!"

"But… two is still better then one. I wanted to help Naomi… I was just so tired of being useless…" She said so quietly, that he had to strain his ears just to hear. "Every time I thought of you I just got so worried, that they might have found you out… I lost my mother to Sound nin's, and I couldn't take it when I found out they were infiltrating Nara. I didn't want to bury someone else important to me."

"Well, I'll do my best against the Sound, you can trust me on that!" Naruto promised with conviction in his own belief that everything would be just fine. Naomi nodded, but she remained curiously silent, devoid of any cold quip to add.

"Thank you both."

"Alright, mushy speeches end right now. We need to get you out of the Kamikochi as fast as possible." Naomi grabbed Kairi and the three of the leaned out the doorway, trying to see if the area was clear.

"Are you three ladies hostesses?" A young man with bright grin and closed eyes met them just around the corner. Naruto tried not to pay attention to the fact that he was wearing a shirt so short that it exposed his mid-rift, and tried to think of an excuse that Kairi would be here.

"And what if we are? What's it to you?" Naomi said stiffly. The young mans cheerful face didn't drop, and if anything his grin became a little wider.

"I was just curious. You see, I was just hired here today as a waiter. I would love to meet you all personally before the night is over, as I hope that we will be working together in the future," He bowed, which allowed his perfectly ink black hair to fall over his forehead. "My name is Sai."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Kiku-chan, and this here is Naomi-chan and her little sister… uh… Nana-chan! She's really, really shy, so could you just let us get her out the door?" Naruto said perkily, all while keeping his body as a shield to protect Kairi's face from being spotted.

"Of course, of course. I wouldn't want her to become uncomfortable." He bowed deeply to them and smoothly walked beside the group as they urged the stumbling Kairi to the doors.

"Bye Nana-chan." Sai said as Naomi and Naruto watched her hurry across the courtyard. She had gotten out without any trouble, but it was possible that Sai had found them out. "Funny, I've heard many things bout Naomi-chan from the owner, but she never mentioned that you had a sister. It's a pity she's so shy, I bet she's a looker under all that hair." He genially mentioned. He seemed harmless, but even Naruto could feel that something was off with the man in the belly shirt.

"Uh… Were you ever a hairdresser by any chance?" Naruto asked.

"Pardon?"

"Never mind." He passed over it quickly, trying to become embarrassed. "Thanks for helping us out, it was much appreciated." Naruto gave him a smile and let a grumpy Naomi pull him away.

"It wasn't a problem. I'll help you anytime." He waved to Naruto as he was dragged away.

"Don't be so open. For all we know he already knows what Kairi looks like, and he knew perfectly well that I don't have a sister." She ground out before they got back to their customers.

"I didn't hear you coming out with anything brilliant, Oh great hostess Naomi! Next time do you want me to communicate with sign language? Or should I just let you do all the talking?"

"Actually, yes." Naomi stopped walking to turn and glare over her shoulder. "You being silent would make everything much easier. But I'm smart enough to recognize the impossible."

"Hey!"

"Naomi-chan, Kiku-chan! What took you two so long, and where's the shamisen?" Kobayashi asked, as he and Fujioka sat comfortably drinking at their seats. Satoshi gave Naruto a secretive smile, and Miyagi waved them over. The four of them seemed harmless enough. The two older men were hardly the type you would suspect of funding one of the most twisted countries to ever be founded, and Miyagi and Satoshi seemed too young, far too… familiar. Naruto remembered how much he had liked Kabuto in the Chuunin exams. It just proved that you should always look twice.

"Sorry you guys! I couldn't find it! It turned out another hostess took it by accident, which is so terrible, so I'm extra sorry!" Naruto bowed, bobbing his head up and down. Naomi just lowered her chin once.

"It's fine, don't worry about it. Just come over here and sit down. Beside me." Miyagi said. Naruto pretended to blush, and didn't notice Naomi giving off dark vibes behind him. She brushed by and plopped herself down in his intended seat.

"Hey! You took my spot!"

"Too bad. Don't be so slow next time." Naruto tried not to lose his temper, but when she gave him a mocking look under her eyelashes he decided he wasn't going to take any more of her icy bitchy attitude. With the intent of pulling out he leaned forward, but his unsteady weight, and the combination of cheap shows and bad carpet caused his thin heel to break, and his body to crash forward awkwardly.

"Naruto!"

_You have to be kidding me._

There he was, with his lips plastered to Naomi's in a scene reminiscent of four years ago. Instead of Sasuke he was lip-locked with one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen. Who had… just called his name before she caught him?


	5. Chapter 5

Yay! Chapter Five is here, like, _not_ a month later!

And thank you so much for reviewing! Especially When most people end up reviewing more then once it's so awesome! And for questions that make your head hurt, well… don't think it'll get too complicated. If this fic was written from say, Sasuke's point of view things would make a lot more sense because he would know what's going on. HintHint

So Thanks to, DaisyAnimeluvr, Rike-sama(My writing skills are totally 133t), RandomlyYours and Satoshi Silver Syoran for reviewing last chapter.

**Disclaimer:** Otnay Inemay. Belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

_Chapter 5_

He stood back up, and after rubbing his mouth furiously with his girly looking forearm Naruto tried to evaluate where his brain stood after was would be officially referred to as the _Accident #2_ blew away any vestiges of logic. And speak process. Some sort of loud refusal of any sort of enjoyment would be good. Because Naomi was certainly someone he didn't want to be kissing. At all.

Naomi's own mouth was open, along with the rest of the group. The men could have been basking in the afterglow of hot girl on girl action, but Naomi herself looked disturbed. Naruto felt a bit like messing up her hair, just to further her state of disarray.

She lifted one pale white finger and lightly touched her red bottom lip, as if she was fascinated with its texture. Naruto could feel the urge to do it himself, because his were tingling. And a bit pained, because she had totally got him with her teeth.

"Can I have my seat back now?" Which of course, was the cause of all this. She sat in his seat, and now they were awkward. Weren't they supposed to be working together? Well, at least she wasn't supposed to cause trouble. She… who somehow knew his name, and still wasn't getting up.

"Well, I can't say that I was displeased by the two of you kissing, but aren't we paying you to amuse us, not each other?" said Miyagi, "And I would much prefer that you kiss me instead Kiku-chan, if you are to kiss anyone." Naruto couldn't help but think that he would like to kiss Naomi again, over Miyagi. Not because her lips were soft or anything, because they weren't. And she used to much teeth. It was totally only because she was a girl, and because Naruto totally wasn't gay he obviously didn't want to be making out with some guy. Obviously.

"Kiku-chan is to shy to kiss anyone! This was actually my first kiss. Believe it!" Well, it was actually his first kiss with a girl. Sasuke didn't count. Kissy faced bastard. The whole incident was still his fault.

"I don't think my wife will like that I saw two girls kissing. She's pretty conservative about things like that." Kobayashi said mildly.

"Damn your wife. She shouldn't be letting you go on these business trips if you feel squeamish every time you do something you think she might not approve of. Live a little! We're getting old, and you only get so many opportunities to enjoy the company of pretty young ladies. How many years has it been since your wife was considered youthful?" Fujioka loudly said, his voice rising in volume after to many cups of sake. Luckily for Naruto, it seemed to be loosening him up.

"Don't say anything about my wife! A bachelor like you should settle down, and then you'd understand responsibility."

Fujioka snorted and took another drink. "Ha! Like you do? Fine example of a man you are. How about this, why don't _you_ kiss Kiku-chan, and show us all that you still have some moves in you."

Naruto's brain exploded. He decided that he didn't want any girly flowers at his funeral, and he'd better be named the Rokudaime in memorial.

"Uh…" A lengthy pause.

"Wha…?" Naomi's face twitched, and she looked like she was actually going to vacate his seat. Naruto was torn between running for the door screaming or… well, there weren't a whole lot of other options were there? There was no way in hell he was puckering up Kiku-chan's lucious lips for some old geezer! It would be like kissing Jiraiya… A thought that caused him intense mental damage in the span of less then a second.

"Haha, well… Kiku-chan is really very shy. After all this smooching business I don't know if I can take it any more! Kiku-chan really is a good girl!" It was hard to pretend he wasn't pleading.

"Oh dear, I wouldn't pressure you like that. Fujioka-san! I demand that you stop harassing this poor girl at once! You can already see how red she's getting." Kobayashi said sternly to his drunken partner.

"So you're not going to do anything?" The other old man asked.

"No!"

"Fine. Then it's up to me to put our money to good use." Fujioka grabbed Naruto's hand and pulled him with a sharp tug. Naruto's foot hopped foreword, and he tried to force his body not to tense. As Fujioka's face came closer he began to shut his eyes, only to feel a large warm hand around his little wrists and another face appear in front of him.

He fluttered his eyelids and opened them to see himself and Satoshi mouth-to-mouth in a sweet kiss. It was official, Naruto was now a player.

"Sorry, I couldn't help it." He smiled slowly, and Naruto smiled back without thinking. He didn't wipe his mouth like he had with Naomi, and he suddenly came to the conclusion that it was all wrong that he had gotten upset over kissing a girl but was getting butterflies inside his stomach because some guy who has dark and brooding eyes tugged him over for a one-sided kiss. Honestly, couldn't he initiate things one time? Preferably while he was in a male body, with a female who was nice and sweet, and nothing like Naomi? Or Sasuke for that matter. Who especially was becoming far to prominent in his thoughts recently.

"I… It's…" he stuttered awkwardly, trying to babble out something that made sense.

"Hahaha! That's a subtle rejection there Fujioka-san! And what about you Miyagi-san? Isn't she your favorite? If you aren't careful Satoshi-san will take her away."

"I've noticed." Miyagi said dryly, but luckily he didn't seem mad. Naomi, who was sitting beside him had gone from slightly blushing to looking like she had eaten something really sour. That, or her face was naturally that tight and puckered. She seemed mad again, and Naruto wondered if she didn't have some sort of attachment to Satoshi and was suffering from jealousy.

"I'm so sorry," Naruto bowed to Miyagi, but lingered near Satoshi, who had drifted out of the conversation and was instead looking into his sake cup, totally relaxed.

_How dare he? He causes all this trouble and he's already not bothering to pay attention to anything that's happening!_

"Kiku-chan doesn't know what's been happening tonight! No kissing for all of her life, and now she's touched two people's mouths. Well, she used to kiss her dear grandfather on the cheek, but everyone knows that's different. Naomi-chan doesn't really count I guess, but it's still more then I was used to. Then Fujioka-san was bullying me, and then Satoshi-san teases me even worse! Kiku-chan is going to turn so red that she'll look like a bright red tomato if this keeps up!"

"Alright so I won't kiss you! How about you Kobayashi-san? Do you want to pucker up for me?" Fujioka asked drunkenly. Kobayashi shook his head and sighed. He poured himself another glass of alcohol and swung it down in seconds. A night was always more enjoyable if there were multiple drunks, or so Naruto's lecherous teacher often said. Though in his case his drinking partners were usually female, and he was most likely paying them to be there.

"Do you want to sit with me then Kiku-chan?" Satoshi gestured his long hands, which had been touching Naruto just moments before to the chair that Naomi had originally been seated in.

"Kiku-chan would really like that!"

"No, that's my chair. Which I was occupying." Naomi said, and she stood up stiffly.

"It _was_ your chair. Then you took Kiku-chan's chair. So now we're trading seats." Naruto sat down before she could protest again, and the two of them began to glare across the expanse of the table. Miyagi was quiet beside Naomi, but there was nothing about him that suggested that he was dissatisfied with the current seating plan. Naruto wondered what his purposes were for flirting with him, because it certainly wasn't that he was genuine.

"So, now that we're all finally here and ready to be entertained, does anyone have any stories they would like to share? After all, the night doesn't have to be all about business." Satoshi added, and both Naomi and Naruto finally broke eye contact. He liked to think that he held it out just a little longer then she did, and it was totally his win.

"Sure! I have a bunch of super stories!" He exclaimed loudly, gaining attention from around the table.

"Anything you have in mind would be great. It's cute that you're so excited." Miyagi smiled at Naruto, who tried not to squirm awkwardly. The man still was giving him the heeby-jibbies.

"Well, Kiku-chan was walking home from the Ramen soup place one night when she heard a sound coming from behind her, coming fast! She started to walk faster, but she didn't want to look like she was getting nervous, so she just shuffled her feet extra quick! But it was getting noisier, and it sounded like feet approaching, so Kiku-chan looked behind her… And there was nothing there!

So, a slightly calmed down Kiku-chan assumed that it was some sort of animal, like a cute little fox or something,"

"Is this story going anywhere?" Naomi asked.

"Yes! Don't interrupt! Anyways, before my super ultra tension was interfered with by a certain someone," He stuck his tongue out a Naomi, "I was saying that the sound was gone, and there was really nothing behind Kiku-chan. She turned back, and she could already see her house from the dark scary hill she was on. Then! It happened!"

"What?" Fujioka drunkenly slurred.

"It came back!"

"What did?" Kobayashi asked.

"The sound! Kiku-chan decided that dignity be damned! So she got ready to run, but just then she heard a voice.

'Miss, you left before we could give you a free bowl of Ramen, on the house! It's there waiting for you!'

It was the cook from the Ramen shop, who dutifully followed her before something truly horrifying could have happened!"

"You have to be kidding me… What's so scary about this story?" Naomi dryly complained.

"Kiku-chan almost missed out on free Ramen!"

"That would have been a true tragedy," Satoshi laughed softly, "and now I know I could never come up with a story to compare to that. You have a lovely habit of making men feel insignificant Kiku-chan."

"Yeah, it was pretty awesome wasn't it." Naruto said proudly. He was making him feel weird! It was bad!

"I could tell a story better then that I'm sure," Naomi, not to be undone became sweet again, "It wouldn't be quite as original as Kiku-chan's, but it can satisfy." She folded her white hands onto the dark table top and let her face become smooth.

"Once, along time ago there was once a prosperous village in the country side; so rich and powerful that the citizens truly believed that they had been blessed by the Gods. They celebrated and flaunted how proud they were to the other villages in their country, all while never bothering to share their opulence with others.

One cold winter day an old man with rotting yellow teeth dressed in rags came to the gates demanding entrance. He said that all he wanted was shelter for the night away from the bitter cold.

The guards on duty laughed at his haggard appearance, and then women freely passing through were clearly repelled by his almost animalistic like visage.

'We would never allow someone like you dirty our fine streets,' they said, dismissing him with an arrogant wave. Immediately the old man shed his skin like a snake, and out came a magnificent Demon Lord, with fangs and red eyes that burned down towards the mortals below.

'Our mercy gave you everything, and look what you've done with it!' He proclaimed, and without hesitating he sucked in the air around him, but when it came out it was a fiery inferno that blazed and burned anything it came in contact with. Soon the magnificent town was in pieces, with its survivors stumbling about without direction.

They moaned and pleaded to the demon lord to have compassion for their lives, because they now had nothing. The guard who had rejected him feel to his knees, asking if there was any way he could ever find forgiveness.

The Demon Lord responded, 'I was truly seeking shelter this day. Bring me the person most precious to you, and I will take their body and your life.' The guard desperately agreed and ran to find his wife, only to discover that she had died in the fires. Their infant lay in his cradle crying, and the guard knew that he was what the demon lord wanted.

Weeping, he bought his only child as the sacrifice for the villagers survival. The Demon Lord accepted, and as he was bound to the child's soul the boy did not make on sound. Only when the father died and the ceremony completed did the baby begin to wail, for all the things he had lost so soon.

After that night the sun came up as it always did, and the people began to rebuild. The town grew once more, larger then before, and the citizens began to forget what had happened all those years ago. Their only reminder was a young boy, who was the symbol of everything terrible that had befell them. He had nothing, and it made it all the easier for the people to ignore him.

The child cried for attention, for anything good or bad. But for all his yelling it was like he didn't exist. When he died he did so without a sound, and the people didn't even notice. Like they didn't notice when their crops began to fail, or when their businesses began to go bankrupt. The village died once more, but not in a blaze of fire, but instead quietly, muffled. They didn't help other villages, and they wouldn't even help one small child. A place so ignorant that even when given a second chance they failed to receive the message." Naomi finished quietly, and there was no laughter.

"I don't understand the message." Kobayashi said, sounding confused.

"There wasn't one." Naruto said coldly. Naomi had struck to close to home, and he was still chilled from it.

"Yes there was. People are cruel."

"That's it? There has to be more. What was the significance of the child? You could have just left the story at the point where the town is burned down. Why did you continue?" Kobayashi asked.

Naomi pulled apart her folded hands and looked underneath her eyelashes. "Because the greater sin was leaving the child without a chance to be loved. They had no obligation to help the other villages, who could've become wealthy themselves. The first destruction was because of the Demon Lord's temper, but the second was not because of supernatural doings. The people did not love each other, and the land felt it and it died with the child. They destroyed themselves, and so there was nothing to rebuild."

"That was one of the stranger fairy tales I've ever heard. Where did you come across that one Naomi?" Satoshi commented.

"I created it on the spot, if you can believe it. I understand that it doesn't cause any smiles, but I've always enjoyed myths like this."

"I didn't like it. It was too much for Kiku-chan! She didn't get it." And neither did Naruto. It could have easily been coincidence that her story held so much in common with his own, but the idea of his own life events being turned into some fairy tale didn't sit well with him. Especially since they were saying he died at the end. Stupid kid, if he was really Naruto he would've been tough enough to make it.

"How about you tell another story then. One that won't be so challenging for you. You know, your brain must hurt _so _bad."

"Yeah! Okay! Here's one. There once was a girl name Kiku-chan, who was super awesome. She worked at a place called the Kamikochi, and there also was a girl named Naomi who wasn't nearly as cool, and who can't kiss worth crap!"

"Girls, girls!" Miyagi tried to placate him, but Naomi was getting worked up too.

"Neither could Kiku-chan, so they both sucked and it was your fault in the first place for falling on me!"

"I didn't fall on you! You took my seat, and you know what? This is my story, so you can't complain. So Kiku-chan was actually a great kisser, and she was extra cute, way cuter then Naomi, who had a face like a fish when she was mad… which was all the time. So fish face Naomi decides that she wants revenge on uber cute Kiku-chan and attacks her with a low level punch. But then Kiku-chan dodges, and with one swift karate chop action she takes her down, like this," Naruto swung his arm up and down in demonstration, "Yeah, like 'Kung-Pow' and whatever. So I win. Nayah!"

"Er… I don't feel so good." And that's when the ignored until then Fujioka became violently ill on Kobayashi's lap.

"Oh… dear." Kobayashi looked pitifully up, and everyone at the table tried not to stare.

"We should get this cleaned up. Someone call Iori-san please." Miyagi leaned over and pulled Fujioka up. He wiped his face with a napkin, while Kobayashi moved his legs with a disgusted look.

"I'll get him!" Naruto volunteered just to get out of there. At the bar Iori was helping an equally smashed Sakurako, who was passed out at the bar, her brilliantly red hair sprawled across the counter top. Beside her Makoto was smoking, and just shrugged when she spotted Naruto.

"Happen a lot?" He asked.

"More than necessary. She'll be fine for another week or so, at least until she meets the next man of her dreams."

"Ah. I was just… here because one of the customers has… gotten ill on another one. I was told to ask for you Iori-san?" Naruto turned to the bartender who sighed and shook his head.

"Always me. And here I was thinking with new male help I would be relieved of this, but that Sai only seems to be flirting with the hostesses. Alright, just point me to the table." Naruto did so and the large man grabbed a towel and a long jacket which was probably for Kobayashi.

"Uhh… Make the hurt go away Mako-mako-chhhhhhaaannnnn…" Sakurako begged and limply banged her wrist on the table.

"You're doing just fine. Just think about this in the morning when it's a full blast hang-over and it's even worse. Tonight will seem like a dream." Makoto said dryly.

"Oh _you._ Your always soooo positive. You are the best friend…. Eer… ever."

"Yeah, that's me. I'll even escort you home tonight, because I know you hate it when you wake up and you have strange mystery wounds."

"I hate those too… One time I had a huge 'L' drawn my forehead with per-permanent marker… er… soming like that." Sakurako poked herself in the forehead with her finger as her eyes became cross-eyed trying to follow it.

"That was the night I got drunk too." Her partner excused.

"Uh… That makes sense… uh…"

"Alright, the night's over for you. Time to go beddy-bye." The tall woman pulled up the floppy Sakurako, who happily threw her arm around her friends shoulders and threw Naruto a kiss before she left giggling madly.

"We should get leaving as well. If Machi-san found out we let a customer get drunk and sick we're in big trouble." Behind him there was Naomi with her purse.

"That's a problem then?"

"Yes, people come here for enjoyment, but not become inebriated to the point that they ruin another guests stay. Let's get out as quickly as possible." Naruto could see Machi-san coming out from the hallway where he office was located and the two of them shuffled out of the Kamikochi in record speed, passing the slow moving duo of Makoto and Sakurako easily.

"Tonight was… interesting. You know, we shouldn't fight so much. It's not exactly helpful."

"I'm not trying to be helpful!"

"You should! Even if you aren't planning to work with me fighting with me will blow your cover!" Naruto complained once they were in the courtyard of the Kamikochi.

"What about yours eh? You suck at acting!"

"You suck at kissing!"

"Bullshit!" Naomi grabbed his face and gave him a big wet one, her lips intensely pressing against his. "How about that?" She grinned and her eyes were large and black, and Naruto couldn't let her win again so he kissed her back, which left them standing there afterwards glaring at each other.

"Why the hell did you do that for?" Naruto demanded.

"You… You kissed Satoshi!"

"What does that have to do with anything? I kissed you too… twice now! The first time was my first kiss!"

"No it wasn't!" She stabbed him in the chest with her finger.

"Yes it was! There was no other and you can't make me admit it, you… you stupid head!" He tried not to notice how terribly lame that sounded. "And… You know my name! How?"

"I… I'm actually… I knew…" She looked frustrated and something clicked for Naruto.

"Were you sent as my support from Konoha? Geez, those old bastards, can't even trust me with a simple mission. It's that Tsunade wasn't it?"

"Wait! I-"

"It's okay, you don't have to compromise your position because of me, I thought something like this would happen."

"Don't go just…"

"And what's that thing with Kairi, he, my support getting mad at me for kissing a suspect. It wasn't my fault Satoshi pulled me to him. Have you kissed Kairi? More then twice?"

"Don't be an idiot! I… uhgg…" She lowered her head and ran a hand through her hair.

"Goodnight then! See you tomorrow partner!"

Naruto waved goodbye in the darkness, and didn't hear Naomi mutter quietly, "_You moron, we've kissed three times._"

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Once back at the hotel Naruto stretched his arms over his head and got his key to unlock the door. Before he could do so Jiraiya pulled it open himself.

"Finally, I thought they would keep you there all night."

"No, but they could've. Some guy puked all over another one. It was disgusting." He walked in and pulled off his dress and shoved himself into pajama bottoms, not before transforming back into his male self.

"And I found Yamada Kairi."

"Excellent, how?" His teacher asked seriously.

"She snuck in, because apparently she knows that there are Sound shinobi involved and she had a personal beef against them. She found a Sound headband, I don't know from where, I'm still figuring that one out. I still don't know how she got her scar though…"

"She has a scar?"

"Yeah… and why didn't you tell me that Konoha was sending me support?"

"I meant too, but I hoped that you wouldn't notice. They weren't supposed to introduce themselves."

"Yeah well, now I know, and it would've been great if you had told me earlier that Naomi wasn't the enemy."

"Naomi? Your support's name is Sai."

"What?"


	6. Chapter 6

Yay chapter 6! Probably is frought with errors and what not, but it's done! And it's really long. And someone finally freakin shows up officially! Yay! Not like you guys know who he was before or anything, nuh uh. No one caught it. At all. Cough. Cough.

Thanks to Milky Etoile! (I love you for reviewing almost all the chapters!) DaisyAnimeluvr, kawaii chibi shun, kohakushina, Duchess Elda, theallpowerfullme, Muchacha (Lesbian action! Ah!) Ookami Aya, lunarxshinobi and Rike-sama who also does awesome long reviews!)

_**Disclaimer: **_Blah blah. Not mine. Not yours.

_Chapter 6_

That next morning Sai was summoned to their hotel room by Jiraiya, where the two of them were supposed to share what information they had managed to take from various customers. His teacher said that it would be an advantage to have both shinobi working together, and while Naruto agreed with the theory he wasn't sure whether he accepted the flamboyant looking nin just yet.

"Pleased to meet you… again." Sai smirked pleasantly from the dusty armchair in their hotel, and Naruto found that he was substantially less fond of him today then yesterday. His current wardrobe consisted of a foppish jacket and a tight black shirt, that while covered his belly button seemed provocative enough that if it was a term used for boys Naruto would've called him slutty.

"Yeah, yeah. And nice informing me last night you know, that you were spying me and what not. Because I totally couldn't do this mission on my own, so yeah, thanks, nice to see you too." Naruto flopped down on the chair across from him and didn't even try to look friendly.

"Play nice brat, it's not like it was his decision to send you help. Blame Tsunade, or the council." His teacher was idly reading over the rough draft of his next novel, never mind that he was supposed to be tracking Yamada Kairi for extra information.

"It's fine, I'm not offended. Naruto- can I call you that?" Sai stopped and asked, but didn't sound like he really cared, so Naruto just shrugged, "Well, Naruto made such a lively and sweet young woman, I honestly can't see her- sorry, I meant him with having any sort of guts, or should I say any balls at all?"

"Jiraiya, If I kill him does that mean they have to send someone else?"

"Jiraiya-san, are all of your students as dickless as this one?" Naruto growled and got up from his chair. Before he could get anywhere Jiraiya gave him a look from the corner of his eye, sufficiently decreasing his students urge for revenge. Throughout the whole thing Sai just stayed put with the identical cat's grin. It made him mad just looking at it.

"Asshole. Like you have the right to mention something like that. You wear belly shirts, what the hell does that make you?"

"Different. You wear woman's underwear, does that make you a pervert?"

Naruto gave him the finger. "Maybe, but at least I don't have a fix on male anatomy."

"No, just females."

"You two, if you don't stop bickering I'll send you both back, and I'll have you both working toilet detail at the academy for the rest of your lives. Sound fun?"

"Not remotely Jiraiya-san."

"Whatever. Just tell him to lay off."

Jiraiya shook his head and sighed. "I won't, you're old enough know that you should be able to ignore when someone is trying to provoke you."

"I'm a fountain of patience. This guy is just extra annoying. He's like peeing in my fountain."

"I'm not peeing into anything. I'm just here for a job, and whether I'm working with a woman or a man I don't care, as long as I complete my duties. Let's try to get along than, and I'll try to avoid going near your fountain ever again." Sai looked more amused than before, and had placed his two hands under his chin in a fey manner. Naruto himself was resisting the urge to stop slouching in his pants and cross his legs like he would in a dress.

"Fine. But don't think you're my partner or anything like that. You're just a hanger-on in this mission, my back-up just in case." He said with determination.

"Naturally, I would never think that we working that closely together. Because, wasn't that Uchiha boy your partner before?" Sai asked, seemingly uninterested.

"And next, you never mention Sasuke again, so shut up. Someone like you… could never take his place." Naruto's hands clenched the arm of the chair tightly, and Sai raised up his own in mock defeat.

"Alright, we play by each others rules. Who was present last night, and what was their motives?" Sai didn't stop looking cheerful, but his voice became more serious, and Naruto let himself sink into a more at ease state of mind. He could do this mission, even if he had to deal with someone like Sai to finish it, even if he had to deal with another black eyed nuisance who just _wouldn't get out of his mind._

* * *

Naruto was wearing another blue dress, a pale blue cocktail dress with darker satin rims along the collar and skirt. He had just changed out of his casual boys clothes, tossed his Ramen stained T-shirt and shimmied into woman's clothing without even thinking. It was only the third day, but Naruto had the horrifying image of himself in a week being more comfortable in a girly frock than his manly orange cargo pants, which was such an awful concept that was unforeseeable when he first began this job.

The day itself was becoming drab, and the skies were graying over with every passing minute. Naruto began to hurry to the Kamikochi in fear that his make-up might get caught in the rain. He had never cared about that before either, because when he was a boy he loved to get soaked to the bone and run madly about, but it would be next to impossible to accomplish that when he was wearing large pumps on his feet.

As he was entering the gates two other women passed by him, two hostesses that he hadn't had a chance to speak with yet. He vaguely remembered them as being called Nami and Tetsuko, the last being a formidable name especially for a soft hostess. They nodded as they came by, but the arrogant look in the washed out looking Nami's eyes and the dismissive face of Testsuko stopped him from greeting them. He wondered if it was the ordinary way to treat a newbie, if so it wouldn't be the first time he had to deal with cold shoulders.

"It's going to be a bitch to get home tonight." Makoto said from behind him, her perfectly coifed bun protected by an umbrella.

"Definitely. By dress is going to be ruined by the time I get back."

"Why didn't you bring an umbrella?" She asked, touting hers up and covering them both.

Naruto scratched his cheek sheepishly. "I didn't think of that. I'm a bit absent minded, if you haven't noticed." He giggled as he finished. Which was gross. No more giggling. He should make a list of dangerous female mannerisms that were ruining his perfectly fitted manly image of himself.

"You're a bit like Sakurako that way. I don't know how many times she comes to work in the rain and ends up with a black streaked face and dead curls. Naturally she ends up weeping in the changing room and doesn't get any work done. Again. I don't know how she keeps her job."

Naruto wanted to ask why Makoto kept hers, as she probably slacked off just as much. "Speaking of Sakurako is she coming tonight?"

"No, last I checked she had created a barricade of blankets to hide under and hasn't changed out of her pajamas. She complained that her head was pulsating so loudly that she thought it might create an external earthquake."

"That bad, huh?"

"Apparently."

"Stop slacking! I don't pay you two to stand around and get wet!" Machi-san loomed from below, and was carrying an utterly ugly animal that Naruto assumed was a dog, but honestly just looked like a hairless rat.

"No, you pay us to stand around and look pretty." Makoto said and began to walk to the doors.

"Of course, now get to work."

"You actually haven't paid me for anything yet, much less being pretty. Because, like I do that all the time and no one's ever given me any money for it." Machi-san glared, and he shut up.

_I guess it's true what they say about dogs and their owners looking alike. They're both really, really hideous. _

"Get inside. _Now._"

"Yes, ma'am." Naruto ran past, even with his high heels and shook his long blonde hair once inside the doorway. Inside he immediately searched around the tables and customers for a familiar arrogant face and kimono.

Miho waved at him in her usual perky form and bounced over in a brown flouncy skirt. "Lovely day don't you think?"

"Brilliant," Naruto said, more than a little distracted, "Is Naomi around by any chance? It's kinda super urgent."

"Um… I don't think so. Which I guess is majorly weird, because she is a passionate employee you know! She always makes it here before me. Except the days I get to excited to wait and come three hours early. Sometimes I just get to impatient and I can't wait to get to work for the day. You know the feeling right?" She playfully hit him on the shoulder.

"…Not… really. But thanks anyways." Naruto made a face and went to the dressing room to check his make-up before beginning the night. As far as he could tell Satoshi and his group weren't here yet either, which meant there was a possibility of him being stuck entertaining some strange group of men by himself.

"… Did you see her hair? I don't think I've ever seen a girl look that cheap."

"Machi-san said that she's from out of town, like, from where? The gutter?" Nami and Tetsuko giggled as they entered, but to give them credit they stopped abruptly when they saw Naruto laying at his make-up desk.

_Subtle girls, I don't think I quite have the message yet._

"Oh. It's you." Nami's lip curled slightly, and Tetsuko wrinkled her nose like she smelled something rank.

"I guess your customers didn't show than? How unfortunate… You may end up at the bar tonight drinking yourself into oblivion just like Sakurako. You should really be careful, because that girl is a bad influence."

"Really? Because Sakurako-chan has been so nice to Kiku-chan." Naruto said, trying to sound extra dumb, as suitable from a girl as cheap as Kiku-chan apparently was.

"Well, that girl likes to play big sister to everyone. But she did something really awful to Tetsuko." Nami sat down beside her and leaned her head on the chair, while crossing her long legs to the side.

"I brought my boyfriend to the Kamikochi one night to meet my friends, and being new I thought the world of Sakurako. I introduced them and in seconds she was all over him, just like I wasn't even there. The next day he broke up with me, and I'm not the kind of girl who makes up false rumours, but I could tell that it was because of Sakurako. That girl has no morals."

"None, she's like a leech." Nami agreed.

"No, worse than a leech. She's like an ameba." Tetsuko said, and Nami nodded. Naruto didn't know what an ameba was, but whatever it was he was sure it wasn't flattering.

"Sakurako isn't that bad. Plus, maybe she didn't steal him away, maybe he just didn't like you. Wouldn't that make more sense?" Naruto smiled happily at Tetsuko, who looked a bit like he had just hit her with a wet noodle.

"Excuse me?"

"Of course, Kiku-chan could be wrong you know. Because I was raised in a lowly gutter I don't know all that much. I don't know what an ameba is, that's for sure. What I do know though, if there is anything lowlier then that I'm sure you two fit the description."

"We don't have to take this from you, I swear to you that you'll regret ever coming to the Kamikochi because…"

"Yoohoo! Kiku-chan, your customers are here!" Miho yelled from the corner, swinging her head out from behind the wall.

"That's me!" Naruto blew them a kiss and just before he left the dressing room gave them a rude gesture with his hand. Miho was waiting for him outside and waved him with a wide smile showing off all of her pearly white teeth.

"Made some new friends?"

"Abso-positively! Kiku-chan can tell that we're going to be bosom buddies right away! I hope that they feel the same way though. Some days I just don't make the impression that I should." He looked back with a fake smile and tried to imagine what they were talking about after he left. Most likely plotting his death as it were.

"Satoshi-san is the only who came tonight, and he asked for you specifically," Miho said, her voice abnormally flat, "Satoshi-san used to ask for Kairi-chan you know. Right before she went missing. And you should be careful with Nami and Tetsuko… they aren't very nice girls. Not like you, and not like Naomi-chan. She has a good heart you know, deep down. But those two, they're vicious." With that puzzling information Miho quickly turned away and happily greeted her table with a free laugh.

"What was that?" Naruto asked himself. Satoshi asked for Kairi? Did he hurt her? Why did he kiss him! No don't remember that!

"What was what?" The man in his thoughts stood behind him with an enigmatic smile. Naruto brought himself to bravely grin back, but his mouth was twitching slightly, and he suddenly wanted company to help him through this encounter.

"Nothing! Some girls were being mean to me, and my friend was telling me to be careful." He said lightly. He was admiring Satoshi without even realizing it, because he looked fantastic in his regal black suit, and Naruto could recall the way his face looked like in the moonlight.

"You can never underestimate the power of a true friend."

"No, you really can't." He paused, and then broke the silence as suddenly as possible. "Our table! Right, should we get a smaller one this time?"

"Anything you say Kiku-chan. I don't suppose Naomi is here tonight?" He asked and Naruto shook his head.

"Naomi… is not here. She's missing. I mean, like not literally missing, because I'm sure she's just at home being her nasty self, or harassing some nice neighbor or whatever. Bet she comes in late, acting all mad because she wasn't treated like the queen of the world or something." He rambled on.

"Right, right. You and her aren't exactly close right?" Satoshi was following Naruto to their private table in a red lit corner, but at his question he stubbed his toe on one of the steps.

"Ouch. Uh… I mean yes. Or, I mean no. We don't know each other that well. I'm new so I don't know anybody really." They sat down, and he rubbed his toe against the ground under the table so Satoshi couldn't see that he had kicked off his left shoe.

"Do you like being a hostess so far?"

"Yes, I'm meeting really great people! Like you, and… other people. But I'm still pretty out of place, and all the other girls have so much more experience than I do. Like all of them can play instruments and some can sing, and I bet they can even dance too."

"You don't dance?" He asked.

"Not really. I bet I could try, but it would more be something like me flailing my arms and legs around to a beat."

"I don't think you have to compare yourself to any of the other girls. Or at least, don't think you're coming up short. I'll be the first to admit that I certainly wasn't sold on you when we first met, but you have a certainly quality to you, you attract people like a glowing light in the darkness." Satoshi was staring intently at Naruto who could feel that his rebellious stomach butterflies were having a field day once more. The man across from him made it very hard to remember that he was the supposed enemy.

"That's pretty deep. Do you mean like those bug light's that like go, ZAP! The ones that kill bugs when they fly into them?"

He smiled slowly and shook his head. "Not quite, but I don't suppose there's much point in explaining any further to you."

"Hehe, I guess not." Naruto shrugged happily, and felt the floating sensation from the day they first met. He leaned over to say something more when he felt a presence behind them. He turned to make a face at Sai, who was standing there in his fashionable waiters suit.

"Would either of you like something to drink, to eat? I'm only here to serve you." He bowed ever so slightly, and Naruto knew that he had the capacity to be polite on occasion, even if he was nothing more than a rude bastard outside of a job.

"Nothing for Kiku-chan! I'm not sure if you could get my order right, so I'd rather just pass on you entirely." He made a shooing motion with his hands and pouted at Sai.

"Me either, but thank you for the offer. Please give Iori-san my regards though, he helped us out greatly last night." Sai nodded and without giving Naruto any sign that he knew him at all went back to his station at the bar.

"Oh yeah! How is Fujioka-san doing? I left before I could get caught… I mean, I left early last night." Naruto asked.

"I think he's doing well. I know he isn't going to be as reckless as he was last night again. Maybe he'll take a lesson from Kobayashi-san and learn the value of responsibility. Or perhaps not, Fujioka-san has always been known for his passionate ways, and his occasional controversial views on society."

"I would prefer to be known for being passionate, rather than responsible. Wouldn't that be boring?" He said, and watched Satoshi's amused reaction. He was glad that he was enjoying his time with him, but he was wasting his time at the Kamikochi flirting. He was here to find out about the Sound, but all he had found out was that Miyagi and Satoshi were rounding up rich gentlemen to listen to the bickering of hostesses.

"Kiku-chan doesn't want to sound jealous, because she knows she doesn't have the right," Naruto looked at Satoshi's lips as he was speaking instead of his eyes and before he knew it he was wondering what it would be like to try kissing him again, "I heard something about you and this girl named Kairi. Was she your old favorite?" Satoshi grabbed Naruto's hands and pulled them towards his chest. He leaned over the able to whisper in his ear.

"_Kairi is nothing compared to you."_

"But,"

"You're like a breath of fresh air, and I can't stress enough how wonderful it is to talk to someone as untainted as you are."

"But Kairi was-"

"Yamada Kairi entertained with Naomi for a few weeks. When Naomi was busy she was eventually our sole hostess, and she was very good at her job, if a bit forced on occasion. One night when I was alone like this she told me that she was pregnant. I don't know what she intended to do by telling me, maybe she thought that I would claim it as mine."

"Were the two of you intimate than?" He felt mildly sick to his stomach.

"No, we weren't, but maybe she thought we had some sort of connection. I was fond of her, but not enough that I would support her and her illegitimate child. I wish that I had given her some sort of help though, because a few nights later I heard that she had been attacked. Her face was cut up, and then she went missing. I assume that the one who did it was the father of the child, who she obviously wasn't that close to if she was trying to find another paternal figure for the baby."

"That's horrible. I never heard anything like that. When I first came to the Kamikochi everyone was pinning Naomi for scaring her off." He still couldn't trust him, but for now it was enough to know that Satoshi most likely didn't sleep with her. Maybe he was lying about the whole pregnancy entirely, because Kairi was looking way too flat for a woman that had to be at least three months in when he last saw her.

"Naomi makes herself an easy target for many things." Satoshi said coldly, and Naruto finally got the vibe that the two of them were not as close as either one of them would have the other believe. There were so many things that didn't make sense in this situation, and he was dying to get home and maybe have a good long discussion with his teacher to clear things up. It wasn't the first time during the mission that he had felt like he was in over his head, and while he wasn't exactly as desperate that he was going to depend on Sai he was finally realizing that there was no way that he was going to get out of this cleanly without assistance. But there were some people Naruto would never ask.

"Why are you so interested in me? I'm not smart, I'm cute and not that pretty, and according to Naomi I wear weird underwear and sometimes I slip into speaking in third person like some weird wrestler. Why are you paying attention?" Naruto asked, not for the mission, but mainly for himself.

"I don't really know. Because your like a light, a bug light as you say that can zap others. You want to be passionate rather than boring, and you aren't afraid of being loud, or shouting at people you don't even know. Your coy without seeming to have any sort intent other than to tease, and you can't hide anything, which I think that's best of all." He tucked a bit of hair that had fallen out of Naruto's elastics behind a small ear. Naruto didn't know if he was genuine or not, but if he was he realized that he was the one who was truly evil in this situation. Naruto had never learnt how to act, but after years of bullying he had learned the fine art of being natural under any circumstances. Even if he blew his cover on the finer details he could always convince someone that he was innocent just by employing his clueless disguise that he wore everyday. Naruto was not an intelligent boy, but for some things he was sharper than anyone could ever imagine.

"Well, I don't know anything about you. Mind you, it has only been three days. But you've managed to figure me out in three nights, I wonder if that means I'm falling behind."

"I wouldn't bother with me, I'm not the sort of person you want to know." Satoshi excused and shut down his open face. It was fairly clear that he wasn't going to be any more forthcoming on why he was coming to the Kamikochi other than to see Naruto, who still wasn't sure if he was just flirting with a new hostess or he had noticed something strange about him right from the beginning.

"I may not be either you know, I have awful eating habits and I don't get along well with the other girls."

"You're playing nice enough with me, which I think is the only thing that matters."

"Now your just being cheesy, have you been taking flattery tips from Miyagi any time lately?" He teased.

Satoshi simply shrugged. "I was becoming that bad?"

"Not quite, but your bordering on the territory. You should do something macho now, like spit on the floor for no reason." Naruto pointed towards the dark expensive wooden floor.

"Is that what the boys in the country side did to impress the women?"

"No, they lifted pigs to show how strong they are."

"Unfortunately I don't see any pigs." He gestured about the room, filled with upper crust men and flirty women.

"I bet Machi-san could substitute." Naruto shoved his small nose up with his hand and made loud snorting noises.

"Mmm… I don't know how I should comment on that."

"Don't, because if you leave it as it is only Kiku-chan will be in trouble." Machi-san creeped up behind them with murder in her eyes. Naruto flinched, as he had the tendency to do even if he was in a mere three feet of her.

"Ah, I can explain."

"Explain what? That you compared your employer to a pig?"

"A tiny pig. A cute pig, with cute little pink ears and a charming button nose," Naruto began to poke his own with his finger lightly, "Like this. Very endearing."

_Oh, he was so dead._

"I came to see how your service has been tonight Satoshi-san, but I think with that little display of feminine wit I don't expect that you're sufficiently impressed." She fumbled with her gaudy kimono and gave Naruto a haughty look.

"On the contrary, I think that if Kiku-chan continues with her animal impressions I may ask for her every night until we get through the entire animal kingdom."

"And after that I could do plants. Kiku-chan does an awesome tree. Want to see it?" Naruto gestured his arms around wildly.

_Yeah, tree arms on a windy day. Take that acting career!_

"I'll pass. I'm pleased to know that you're satisfied, and please excuse my intrusion."

"Nothing to be excused." He grinned as Naruto continued to make wide movements with his arms. Machi-san turned away and left the two of them at their lone table to find another group to harass. From the looks of it she was striding quickly over to the table of Nami, who looked like she had spilt a glass of wine on the lap of one of her guests. The look of horror as she realized that Machi-san was nearby was pure gold.

"What else can you do?"

"A frog. Totally inappropriate when wearing a skirt as short as this. Oh let's see," He made a point of looking perplexed for a moment, "I could do my impression of the life cycle, but again, the skirt would impede the true master stroke when I'm inside the womb. Alright, how about…"

* * *

Naruto didn't drink anything that night, but when he and Satoshi were at the exit of the building he felt giddy beyond anything that logic could explain. He almost forgot about his hostess partner not showing, or that as far as the mission went he had figured out nothing. Perhaps he really was useless when it came to serious work. Nothing he had done before had prepared him for a situation in which he had to play pretend before, from chasing an errant cat to fighting in the chuunin exams.

"I could walk you home, would that be alright?" Satoshi asked and held her hand gently. Naruto smiled at him with a sincere smile and nodded happily, not even realizing that he was giving away the main base of his and his teachers operation.

"Yeah, I would like that." Damn it, he was a boy! He wasn't supposed to get this into it!

"Good, because then were both glad." Naruto pulled them down the shadowed streets, virtually abandoned by the towns people at this time of night. Luckily the rain from before had stopped, and only a faint mist remained coming from the sky. He could feel a faint prickle on his neck, almost like they were being watched, but Naruto ignored it for the time being. Who ever it was had to be a civilian, if they were so obvious that even the normally unobservant Naruto could pick up on their presence.

When they both stopped on the corner where his hotel was they dropped each others hand and gave a mutual smile. "Can I kiss you?" Satoshi asked. Naruto responded without thinking.

"Yes." When he did the feeling of being watched became stronger, but Naruto cared much, much less.

"Goodnight Kiku-chan."

"Goodnight…" He said and then stumbled across the road to his room. Naruto was humming without thinking as he opened the door and placed his small purse on his desk. Tonight he was alone, because Jiraiya was at some bar with some woman whom he claimed had the hands of an octopus. Naruto pulled off his dress and transformed before shuffling into his loose sweat pants. He laid down on his bed and began to study the ceiling intently, watching the cracks in the white plaster.

"Wow… That was…"

**Bang**

"Eh? What the hell?" Naruto jumped up and strode across the room. He placed his ear to the door and cracked his knuckles before poising his hand to open the knob.

**Bang Bang**

"Who is it?" Naruto asked, but when there was no answer, and only a hard thump of what sounded like a body hitting the floor Naruto threw open the cheap door from its frame.

"Naruto… I need your help." Sasuke said, lying on the roughly carpeted floor wearing black clothes saturated with dark spots that could only be blood.

"Tell me a good reason why I shouldn't just slam it back closed you bastard… You… Ass face!" Naruto glared down at him, and the only response that he first received was Sasuke looking towards him behind his curtain of black bangs, which were noticeably longer then they were when they were twelve.

"Because… I…"

"Get talking, because I'm considering option one at the moment, or the ever popular option three, which involves me kicking your crippled ass out onto the street."

"Ugh… Because I'm getting blood on the carpet? Hurry up and pull me in." Sasuke grumbled, which caused Naruto to swing the door on its hinges catching Sasuke's outreaching arm in the closer.

"Fuck! That… Agh… my arm. I'm fucking injured!"

"You'll get over it. I did. You know, I promised Sakura that I'd bring you back. That was the only promise that I've ever made that I've ever considered breaking. Sometimes I was so mad that all I could imagine was beating you into a bloody pulp and leaving your broken body behind. Just so you could experience what it's like once." Naruto went down to his knees, and put his hand on Sasuke's side to assess the damage. Sasuke himself was looking away towards the wall, his expression pained. Whether it was from Naruto's words or his touch he wasn't sure.

"Let's get you inside."

* * *

Once propped on the bed and wrapped carefully in sturdy white bandages Naruto could truly see the extent of damage on Sasuke's body. They were all simple flesh wounds, but there was multiple gashes on his torso and limbs that, while they didn't require stitching, had let out to much blood for Sasuke to be freely moving about.

"I should have known from the start who you were." Naruto accused as he roughly tied Sasuke's left arm, causing him to hiss.

"I did. Honestly, the moment I saw you I knew it was you." He looked at Sasuke darkly and tried to ignore the arrogant tone of his voice. It might not have been intentional, but some things never changed through out the years.

"I only figured out last night. Before that I couldn't figure out why you reminded me of _you _so much. It hurt. You hurt. Why the hell are you here? Now? Of all times!" He sat down on the end of the bed and glared immaturely towards the dark boy.

"I've left the Sound. Naomi was my pseudonym to avoid their hunter nin's."

"If you left the Sound than why the hell didn't you come home? We were waiting! Well, I wasn't, but Sakura is! Kakashi-sensei is! The whole stupid village is waiting for their great genius son to come back so they can welcome him with open arms!"

"I still haven't killed my brother. I can't become strong by playing around in Cell 7." He said quietly, trying to avoid eye contact as much as possible.

"Is all we did play time than? What about the Wave country? What about the exams? You didn't get stronger at all? A person needs other people! You can't just reject everything and expect that everything is going to be okay!"

"I never asked for okay!" Sasuke shouted back, and than shifted his body into a more comfortable position. "I didn't expect to live past killing my brother. I don't need friends… I can't… You, you mess everything up!"

"Sorry for being a burden!" Naruto grabbed a nearby pillow and gave it a good chuck at Sasuke's face.

"Ouf!" It fell off dramatically, leaving a very off-putting Sasuke-face in its wake. "And you kissed Satoshi. He's not who you think he is." At this statement Sasuke gave off waves of anger, and he began to pull at the fabric of the pillow.

"That was an accident, that Fujioka was about to kiss me!" He exclaimed.

"No, just now. Outside. You kissed him, and he knows where you live now, and you just let him…"

"Shut up. It's none of your business who I kiss. You kiss stealer." Naruto turned red when he remembered last night when he had kissed her, no him back in the courtyard. Sasuke knew who he was at the time, but he still…

"We're… friends right? You said you would break our connection, but here we are."

"I tried Naruto. I tried to break you off, but you're like a nasty barnacle who just keeps on growing back."

"Gee, thanks." Naruto gave him a grin out of the side of his mouth, the first positive expression he had shown to his ex- no best friend that night. "Wow, I just thought about something really weird…"

"Is it worth saying?" Sasuke was grinning to now, but it was only a small thing, like a muscle spasm at the side of his lips.

"We kissed last night right? Once by accident, and once because you forced me to." After this Naruto could have sworn he saw Sasuke turn a bit red.

"What about it?"

"Does that make us lesbians?" This time it was Sasuke who grabbed the pillow and threw it at his shorter friend.

"You're such a freakin moron. I was expecting something like that, but it just hits you like a brick, every time."

"But, seriously!"

"No."

"Really?"

"NO," Sasuke shook his head dramatically, causing his long black hair to sway from side to side. "We never speak of that again. Ever."

"Never ever?"

"None. Subject is forbidden." Sasuke wiggled his toes experimentally while giving Naruto a stern look. "I'm being chased by dangerous shinobi, you realize this right?"

"Yes, and you don't want me to get involved, but somehow you managed to drag your lame butt to my front door to ask me for help."

"I didn't have anywhere else to go, and I didn't realize that I had been seen when I was watching the Kamikochi. I was on the roof when I was attacked by three nin's, and I only barely made it away… I saw you and Satoshi, and I followed you, and then watched you two re-enact some cheesy romance movie on the corner. I didn't have any option but to get myself into a safe house."

"Were you the one who was following me than?"

"What? You noticed me? I know I was invisible." Sasuke, while making a slight to Naruto's prowess as a ninja was probably right.

"There were people, behind me." Naruto said, confused and checking the window.

"Go look, they should still be around." Sasuke tried to lean to get out of his bed, but a hand on his chest from Naruto slowed him down. He walked to the window and peeked out carefully. And sure enough there were two figures standing there on the street pointing at his male form.

"Who is it? Can you see them?"

"Yeah, it's Nami and Tetsuko from the Kamikochi. I think it's safe to assume that they know who I am."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7! Finally! It wasn't like I just took a break from this one, it was a plain and painful process of sometimes writing only a sentence per day. Arg! It's fairly long which I guess is good, but I'm even having to cut events till next chapter because of how lengthy this was getting. Anywho, Sasuke was finally revealed as Naomi last chapter so I actually had to refer to himself as "Sasuke" while writing about him acting like a girl. It was seriously eking me out, because Naruto can do it and be cute, but Sasuke... er... no.

Also! I finally have a beta-reader (the awesome Milky Etoile) so there shouldn't be any more glaringly obvious spelling errors that I consistantly make while writing.

Thanks to lunarxshinobi, Milky Etoile (Hah, I was totally thinking that he could be him, but it hadn't occured to me until recently, but anything can happen!) SWSNBN (who's review actually managed getting me to realize that I really needed proofreading), kohakushina, Weavers, DaisyAnimeluvr, DNArrest, Muchacha (Naughty mind! But not that I wouldn't mind Sasuke attacking Naruto all that much... Heh), and bempi-chan

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto, but I like to kick it when it's down and make its characters gay.

_Chapter 7 _

Naruto backed away from the window uneasily and sat back down on the fluid sheets of his minuscule bed. Sasuke's feet were in the way, but a simple shove was all it took to budge them out of Naruto's space.

"They don't know who you are. Trust me, it's not like the first connection their going to make is that you're masquerading as a female hostess." Sasuke shrugged as he remained propped up by Naruto's collection of old pillows. He vainly tried to stir his feet back into their former stretched position, but Naruto remained stubbornly at the foot of the bed.

"Stop that! I have to do some big thinking here! This could be a serious problem you know, for both of us. A Job ruining problem! Like both you and me officially being failures as a shinobi. I could be demoted, if there was a rank lower than genin, and you would regress into the crappiest missing nin _ever_." He let his head hang downwards and ruffled his hair in frustration. Nami and Tetsuko had only seen him, and possibly Sasuke from their limited vantage point on the street. They weren't shinobi, and wouldn't make connections like that, but Naruto couldn't believe how careless he had been.

"No one is ever going to hear about this. If it turns out that they recognize me or you as being suspicious in any way we can just remove them from the situation." Sasuke said with the slightest of drawls, a new trait he had seemingly picked up in his four year absence from Konoha. Naruto wasn't sure if he liked it. In a strange way he kept on expecting the boy with black hair to stick his tongue out awkwardly and run it over his lips in the style of his infamous teacher.

"Do you mean like… literally remove them? Like," Naruto made a snipping motion with his fingers, his eyes wide and expressive. Sasuke stared incredulously, and Naruto, imagining that he didn't get it instead ran a finger over his throat dramatically. "Like that? Because I don't kill people. I'm not sure what your ethic code is on stuff like murder, but it's against my nindo."

"No, Naruto, no, I'm not sure what you even picked up at the academy, if anything at all that is; removal doesn't have to be strictly categorized as an assassination. Those can often be tricky of you have to remain at the scene." Sasuke waved his hand dismissively afterwards. It irked Naruto that he spoke of human lives so casually, as if they were things that could be easily thrown away. In a more sadistic turn Naruto wondered just how large Sasuke's body count was, and whether or not the victims truly deserved death.

"Alright genius, give me a good escape route. I can call myself Kiku's twin brother, or something equally as lame, but what if they saw you make a brilliant entrance through the front door? We can't say that they didn't catch you move past the window. Oh no! What if they think that Kiku-chan is a loose woman! Ah! She would never sleep around like that!" Naruto exclaimed loudly and pressed his hands to his cheeks with a horrified expression.

"They're not… Never mind. Just let it be, if they spread rumours about you at the Kamikochi than it will only add to your mystique. It's not like any of the woman there are candidates for purity." Sasuke said dryly.

"What if Satoshi hears about it!" Naruto realized that the man would be disappointed if he found out that Kiku was staying with two men in a small motel room. Kiku-chan was still a pure virgin, but her delicate reputation would be ruined if people thought she was an easy mark. Sasuke on the other hand made a face at him, he only rolled his eyes at first, but his mouth tightened just at the mention of Satoshi's name.

"What does it matter? I told you not to go near him anyways. Your targets are the business men, so stay on task. You're not supposed to be so emotionally involved in a mission anyways, and your attachment to that man will only cause you pain." He spoke, as if he knew anything about what Naruto was feeling.

"You ran your hand through my chest with the intent of killing me, and now your lecturing me on the dangers of getting involved with Satoshi? As it stands he's more qualified for trust than you are. Plus, I'm not sure whether your aware or not, but he's not very fond of Naomi. He likes me better." Naruto said childishly, ignoring that the first part had been said purely out of spite. His ex-teammate deserved to be hurt, but he had never enjoyed being intentionally cruel.

Sasuke groaned and rubbed his stomach, as one of his wounds seemed to be paining him. It was most likely just an attempt for sympathy points. Not that he was getting any, because Naruto was going to be as sharp as a pointy sharp knife. Extra pointy. "It has nothing to do with him liking me or not. You have this misconception about so many relationships at the Kamikochi that I'm not even going to bother to correct you."

"Than correct me! I still don't know what your deal is! I don't know why you left Orochimaru, because, hey, he was obviously such awesome company. A little bit of a pedophile, but because he's all amazing and powerful that can be easily glossed over. You show up at the Kamikochi in a dress. A _dress _Sasuke. Shit, and here I was thinking you thought my technique was childish and immature, but your in a dress pinching me under the table and speaking in this high pitched head ache inducing squeal that had me fantasizing about murdering you in less than an hour. Then-" Naruto was interrupted mid rant by Sasuke limpishly raising his hand.

"I wasn't wearing a dress you idiot! It was a kimono. They're different, not like you would be able to tell the difference, I-"

"Shut up! This is Naruto talking time!" He pointed to his imaginary watch on his wrist. "And you don't tell me crap, and you made fun of my singing!"

"Your singing sucks ass." Sasuke chimed in rudely again.

"You, silence! I wasn't blessed with your testos-… Testo… Whatever. That deep voice shit." Naruto complained loudly, snorting through his nose when he remembered Sasuke coming to the academy one day with his voice cracking statically. Oh, good times.

"Do you mean Testosterone? It's a male hormone that you seem to be lacking in. Don't blame me if you happen to sing in a falsetto." Sasuke said with his irritatingly smooth low voice. Naruto's eyes gave off a slight twitch. He had grown taller in the past few years, and he had grown broader in the shoulders and longer in the legs, but Naruto seemed to be stuck as a pubescent boy as far as his vocal chords went.

"You never told me about Kairi either. Geez, at least you could have explained that she was pregnant. That she went to Satoshi and told him to take care of the baby. Funny, because she was saying she wasn't exactly those guy's biggest fan." Naruto studied Sasuke for his reaction, but only found a blank face. The young man in the bed blew air out of his lips softly, and considered what he was going to say.

"Kairi was pregnant… but she lost the child before her first trimester. The father of the child didn't want it alive, and Kairi wasn't given a whole lot of options."

"Do you mean… You were the father? Oh! Sasuke you bastard!" Naruto gaped at him abashed at first, but Sasuke rolled his eyes like Naruto had said something stupid again.

"I've never been even remotely sexually involved with Yamada Kairi in any way. She was in trouble at the time and she had information that I needed. It became necessary for me to reveal myself to her, and she might have become… attached during that time. I suppose she saw me as a hero of some sort, a protector."

Naruto grinned sardonically at this. "Luckily we both know better. Neither of us have any delusions about _your_ nobility." He mentioned, referencing to Sasuke's previous behavior, and his betrayal four years ago. Sasuke looked stricken for a juncture of time, but like the nights before it passed like it never was.

"It's not my fault that girls trust me without thinking." He snapped back and crossed his pale forearms across the top of his single cotton blanket.

"Yeah, hate it when that happens. People liking you without any effort on your part. Its gotta suck to be Sasuke." Naruto returned bitterly. "So… did you ever find out who it was?" He said softly, ditching his brittle tone of voice and returning to Kairi's before unknown pregnancy.

Sasuke shook his head and gazed out the window beside them. He might know, but in any case he wasn't going to tell anything. Naruto almost wished that he would tell him that it was Satoshi, because than he could forget entirely about the last three days and view him dispassionately as Naruto, as opposed to Kiku-chan, who was much too fond of the man and acted like a big hussy when she was around him.

"Damn it, she's such a flirt! She should control herself more!" Naruto proclaimed out loud, shaking his fist with flair. Sasuke stared at him questioningly, with one fine black eyebrow that looked far too much like it had been plucked. Heh, he was such a girl.

"Who?"

"Kiku-chan! She's becoming a harlot!"

"What? What exactly are you talking about? Have you seriously gone insane? You and Kiku-chan are the same person. And you're supposed to be acting the part of a harlot anyways, so get over it."

"Are you saying that Kiku-chan has no other options? I outta slap you a new one! Men just can't understand what a girl has to go through these days, all this hardship and agony just to land a good life of a housewife. Kiku-chan is struggling for her freedom!" Naruto chastised his bed-mate, who had dropped the lower part of his jaw and sighed loudly.

"You've gone beyond my comprehension and I'm not even going to try to understand you anymore. You really are a moron you know that? I'm sure there's a name for your condition, but let's not get too technical and just call you crazy." Sasuke uttered, earning him a stuck out tongue from the blond boy at the foot of the bed. He checked under the sheets to see his damage, and seeing a lack of new bleeding he sat up and pushed the blankets to the side. "This has been… pleasant. But I doubt that your fellow Leaf shinobi would be okay with letting me into your bunk tonight."

"Don't go! You're too injured, and besides, your welcome to join me in my bed anytime." Naruto pleaded, but Sasuke's eyes had glazed over slightly, and again his cheeks seemed a bit red.

"Do you intentionally say things like that?" Sasuke asked quietly. "I- I wasn't going to join you or anything. You just-" Sasuke trailed off, but heavy footsteps in the hallway alerted Naruto to his roommates return. "I have to go…" And like some strange superhero (woman by day, effeminate man by night) he leaped out the window and into the streets. Naruto was left there standing alone when Jiraiya opened the door wit a loud bang.

"Well boy! Ask you got lucky tonight!"

"Do I have to?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Naruto staunchly ignored Sai in the chair as he got ready for the next night, nervous both about his secret paranoia that Nami and Tetsuko had discovered him, and how he was going to face Naomi knowing who she really was. Naruto had finally found it in him to admit that his espionage skills kinda sucked hard-core, and he stayed awake all night just thinking about suddenly revealing both him and Sasuke. He also imagined that if they both could finish their prospective jobs together than maybe, just maybe he could convince Sasuke to come home with him. After all, he had made a promise with Sakura.

"Your breasts seem to be expanding every night. You might want to be careful, because it would be truly unfortunate if Kiku-chan were to develop back problems." Sai said, and Naruto gave him a large grin from his vantage point in his small mirror. While applying his man-killer red lipstick he gave off what he hoped was a killer vibes, but it was astoundingly difficult in a cute pink dress.

"Sai, you seem to have stuffed your pants more than usual, you know that you don't have to overcompensate quite that much, because it just becomes plain embarrassing when it's that obvious." He turned with a perky hop and widened his mouth to show all of his perfectly white little teeth.

"I'm tickled that you noticed, I did see that that was the first area that you checked when I entered the room. It seems ironic though, because I'm the one who apparently has the penis fixation." He lounged like a large panther across the arms of the rotting chair, and Naruto couldn't help but concede a point, all the while simultaneously enjoying another fantasy of choking Sai to death with socks.

"Naruto, leave Sai alone." Jiraiya said, while cooking what seemed to be another useless hang-over cure. It seemed like his big conquest from the previous night had actually been a bit older than he could recall her being when he was drunk. He had described her as being this beautiful vivacious woman, but it turned out it was only one of the cleaning ladies from the motel with her hair down. This said revelation lead him to a vicious all night binge fest, which lead to an awe inspiring day long illness.

"He's picking on me again! And why am I the only one getting in trouble?" Naruto whined. Jiraiya glared at him with groggy eyes.

"Because I have a headache, and you spent an entire night with Satoshi and didn't find out one thing. So you're useless to me unless you find a miracle cure for the little hammers beating against my skull." He explained without a beat, mixing what looked like bits of toast into a bowl full with mushed up banana.

"It's not like it's my fault you got all wasted and horny." He griped while checking his hair one last time and brushing back stray strands of curly blond hair.

"Horny is a vulgar way to put it. I'm a lonely old man, and I have needs too. One day I'll hook you up with a woman, and maybe than you'll understand the feeling of content one can enjoy when wrapped in soft white arms." He teacher briefly dreamed, and Naruto decided not to remind him that if his idea of soft white arms belonged to the elderly cleaning lady than his student wanted no part in his matchmaking.

"My job is calling too me, so while I would really love to stay and chat about sexual healing I really must be going before the mental images become permanent. Ja!" Naruto shucked on his shoes and followed a silent Sai outside his door to walk to work.

Outside the building Naruto observed that his unappealing partner in work had already taken the high road, and was jumping the roofs to make it to the Kamikochi on time. He could've done that, but he really didn't have any faith in his ability to land in heels.

_Whatever, I'll be fashionably late, and he'll be all lame and on time. _

But Sai would also be able to evade the attention of the owner, the infamous Machi-san, who's face was still holding a reign of terror in Naruto's nightmares. So, with that fresh in his mind Naruto began to walk just a little bit faster towards the club.

"Hello Kiku-chan." Two voices said simultaneously as soon as he entered the doors of the Kamikochi, as Nami and Tetsuko sided him like two pieces of bread to his lunch meat. Together they loomed over his shoulders and grinned happily, looking extensively pleased with themselves. "Last night," Nami began slowly, testing the waters for some sort of reaction that the leeches could feed off of, "I saw, well, me and Testu saw something quite strange." Tetsuko nodded beside her, following her lead stupidly.

"We were just in the neighborhood, just taking a walk to burn off the calories." The other woman said, elaborating.

"And guess what we saw?" Nami asked sweetly.

"Oh dear, Kiku-chan is really awful at guessing games. Can we make it easier, like you give me three options or something?" Naruto pleaded pathetically, pulling at his bottom lip.

"Er…" Nami trailed off, trying to think of an appropriate come-back, before Tetsuko proved that she was always eager to add a bit of her special brand of wisdom to any conversation.

"Okay, I can do this game. Well, first we saw these pair of boots on half price at the new chic store, you know, with the big purple sign and then we were strolling along and we caught sight of Machi-san's dog peeing flower bed of the business next to the Kamikochi, which is gross, but kind of funny, because those flowers must have been really expensive, because they looked fancy. After that we followed- I mean, saw you in your motel; we weren't spying or anything! But you were there with these two guys, and one was so hot that he would just torch the tongue, and the other one was cute you know, but the fact was we had just seen you in there just a few minutes ago, so me and Nami here thought it was really skanky." Tetsuko finished, out of breathe from taking so few pauses. Naruto nodded slowly, his eyes opened wide.

"You idiot! All of those things happened!" Nami snapped at her friend, "and the store we saw those boots at was only 25 off and your sister works there. Does she tell you to advertise at the workplace?"

"Well, not really. But doesn't it make that one not true? And the flowers that the rat was peeing on really weren't expensive, they were just daisies. So…" Tetsuko explained loudly.

"…So that means you saw me in my motel room with two men, because you two are creepy stalkers, and don't seem to realize that it's a crime!" Naruto grinned happily at them, a bit happy because a girl had called him cute. "How about this, I'll forget all about you two following me home, if you two forget that you saw me with my brother and his sick friend, who dearly needed my help. I don't know what you two are getting at anyways, there's no rule about who you're living with, and what's so wrong with living with two men?"

"Especially when their hot." Tetsuko nodded.

"Your right, if living with two drool worthy men is a sin than shoot me now." Naruto said vivaciously, and the three women (one who was actually a faux-woman, but in context of his/her own current body we shall refer to him as a she for the sake of the sentence) gazed into the distance, as if in a pleasant daydream. Naruto was thinking that he hadn't eaten properly that day, and that he could really use a good cup of Ramen. The other two weren't thinking of food, but an activity that they still considered nourishing, even if it was nowhere as innocent.

"But, that's what we're getting to! We were thinking that any further dispute between us might be averted, if only you would lend us your two roommates for the night of the Mask at the Kamikochi." Nami explained, stealthily wiping a bit of drool from her lips.

"Eh? The night of the what?" Naruto asked.

Nami gave him a condescending stare, "Newbies. The Mask is just a gathering for the regular public that the Kamikochi hosts. It's a large scale advertisement for the business, and while we don't have to work that night as hostesses we're expected to be there with the guests. It didn't used to be a big deal, but a few years ago Sakurako brought in some small time celebrity as a date and ever since than it's become tough competition for the hostesses to see who can shine the brightest that night." She lifted her arms to her sides and posed with what must have been a photogenic smile. "This year the girls are saying Naomi will win, whether she brings a date or not. But, like we all know that she's gross and scary as hell, but apparently guy's think she's hot." Tetsuko said with her eyes rolling.

"Yeah, like very hot." Tetsuko parroted uselessly, continuing her less than stimulating comments.

Naruto nodded his head as if in agreement, but sighed melodramatically, "Well, as much as I would love to help I really can't. My brother is already swamped with women desperately trying to get a piece of him, and his friend, sadly I have to inform you is gay. He dresses as a woman in his spare time and has low self esteem because he isn't a very good drag queen. You know, _he really sucks at putting on make-up,"_ Naruto stage-whispered, "But my brother's cool, so he like, let's him hang around because the guy's lonely." He shrugged at the end, basking in the glow of his audience's horrified faces.

"Wow… Really?" The both asked, with Naruto responding by nodding his head vigorously.

"I think we should try someone else than." Tetsuko said quickly, worried that she might be stuck with the supposed drag queen.

"Yeah, like only Sakurako would ever be a fruit fly. Me and Tetsuko have better things to do with our time." They exited stage left (They went to the bar) and Naruto was left alone in the center of the entrance hall, victorious over evil, and inventor of drag-queen Sasuke.

"Yes! Oh yeah, who totally worked that one out!" Naruto cheered himself on and happily did a little dance before he searched the room for his guests and Sasuke, who he still wanted to finish his talk with, and refused to be stopped by his old friend mysteriously jumping out a window to escape a sighting by Jiraiya.

"Please don't dance in public." Sasuke said from behind him, who was wearing a non-traditional outfit for once. Instead he had donned a simple pure white sundress and had left her (his!) hair down. Naruto tried not to laugh, now only seeing Sasuke behind the fair facade.

"Sa- So… Naomi. Uh. Fancy meeting you here. In this place. That we both work at, because we both are legitimate employees." Naruto said stiffly, just barely missing calling the brunette by his real name.

"Wow, that was stealthy." Sasuke placed his hands on his hips, his arms daintily twisted. "I've already met our guests and led them to our table, something which you should have been here for." He admonished with his smooth feminine voice, which was still disturbing Naruto to no end. "Miyagi is here tonight, as well as Fujioka."

"And Satoshi?" Naruto asked.

"Of course, he comes every night." Sasuke said shortly, and turned from him sharply They walked past the short steps and entered the small area that had been set apart for their influential group. The three men waited in their dark chairs and the two girls (boys) both gave graceful bows before greeting them.

"I missed you last night Kiku-chan. I'm so sorry if you felt lonely in my absence." Miyagi smiled, and Naruto felt the customary shiver down his back. The guy was just too creepy.

"It was terrible. Satoshi-san had to comfort me all night, but he found me to be inconsolable." Naruto lied, all the while watching Satoshi (who was just as much of a kiss stealer as Sasuke) out of the corner of his eye. The man didn't notice, and wasn't showing any signs of interest at all. Naruto couldn't have felt more like a woman than if he tried, but the guy kept on running hot and cold, and if Kiku-chan had been a real girl this probably would be driving her crazy.

"Truly unfortunate. Well my dear, no more suffering. Tonight you may lean on me for any of your problems." And with this he gestured his hand to the bottle of alcohol on the table and flourished the motion of pouring the light liquid into a small glass cup. "Here, come sit down and enjoy yourself." Naruto followed his request, settling the folds of his skirt onto the curved bench. Sasuke seated himself across from him, primly shutting his legs together and sitting up rigidly. He was looking disapprovingly down towards the drinks, and pushed his own light glass away with the tips of his fingertips, revealing his rejection.

"The lady isn't a drinker?" Fujioka asked, himself void of a glass tonight, most likely a precaution arising from his activities two days prior.

"No. I find it to be vulgar for a woman to drink. I was always taught very strictly to keep my mind clear for my guests. Kiku-chan, you shouldn't drink either, your attention towards you guests could suffer.." Sasuke said, and Naruto could feel rebellion brewing from inside him. It was his mission, and while Sasuke might have an agenda of his own he had no right to tell him what to do. Before any of the men could stop him Naruto threw the cup up and drank the entire content with one gulp.

"Ah!" Naruto exclaimed and shut his eyes tightly as he felt the burning sensation flow down his throat. Miyagi in turn drank the rest of his cup, but without the same enthusiasm as his hostess.

"Hot damn! What the hell was in that?" Naruto coughed once before setting down the glass with a bang, his senses immediately becoming duller with the consumption of strong alcohol.

"Strong liquor, very strong. You aren't… expected to drink it that quickly my dear." Miyagi rubbed his back, and Naruto slumped his head forward from dizziness.

"I'm just fine, really! Kiku-chan just needs a second to be all better!" He announced boisterously and pumped his fist into the air, causing him to fall back into his seat. Sasuke eyed him worriedly, but Naruto gave him a conspiring wink from underneath his wave of blond hair.

"Well, as long as you don't make the same mistake as I did." Fujioka said forlornly, looking towards the bar at Iori-san, the worker who had cleaned up his mess.

"Kiku-chan is a big girl. I can be responsible if I really try." Naruto promised the group of men, that was secretly void of any real feminine charms.

Miyagi purred down at him and slowly poured him another glass which Naruto eyed warily. "Of course you can, no one is doubting it."

"I really can! I came all the way from my little village just to begin my own independent life. I planned to get a job, land a rich husband…"

Fujioka laughed at this, "How honest she is."

Naruto chuckled and continued, in his slumped position, "…And than end up with a happily ever after, wealthy, fat and totally spoiled."

"That's not really a happily ever after." Satoshi spoke quietly, to which Naruto listened to attentively.

"Do you have to be fat?" Fujioka asked.

"Yes! I've always equated happiness with fatness." He said with conviction, remembering the overweight ladies that he had to work for in the Cell 7 days. They weren't necessarily happy, but they had achieved what they had sought after in their lives.

"Do you know what would make me happy?" Miyagi asked, grabbing his hand and bringing it up to his lips. Naruto was pretending to enjoy it, while concealing his true instinct to poke the man in the eye and run.

"No, what is it?" There was a number of things that would make Naruto happy at the moment, but making the gray robbed man letting go of his hand seemed to be top priority.

"If you would accompany me to the mask tomorrow night. I can't let you go with anybody else." He tightened his grip, and the blond boy gulped, wiggling his fingers a bit to see if he could still move them.

"Well, considering that no one else has asked I guess I don't have many options. Kiku-chan is so glad that you want to take her though! Because otherwise I might have had to go solo, and everybody knows that a woman can only be proud of herself if she has a man in her life. Being single is _so_ overrated." Naruto pulled his hand back in a singular act of falling from character. He would pretend to be attracted to Miyagi, but there was only so much creepy a person could take.

"I guess that means your coming with me." Satoshi referred to Sasuke offhandedly. Sasuke turned to him as well with a girlish smile, the same one he had worn when Naruto had first seen them together.

"Naturally. I wouldn't let some other girl take you." He laughed and it sounded hollow. Naruto giggled as well, and made a slight sip to his drink. As he did so he noticed something disturbing.

_Were my hands always this big?_

He examined his fingers around the cup closely, eyeing his wide knuckles and wide palm curled around the glass that seemed to be becoming smaller by the second.

"What's wrong dear, you seem upset." Miyagi asked, his arms now thrown around the back of the bench that they occupied.

"Noth-" The voice that came out was significantly deeper than it had been before, and he could feel his dress becoming tight around his legs and shoulders. Sasuke caught on quickly, and sprang from his seat, shocking Fujioka and causing Satoshi to give him a questioning stare.

"Kiku-chan really doesn't look very well, I should take her to the girls room to rest." He grabbed Naruto's expanding forearm and the two of them dashed to the hallway, Naruto's shoe strap snapping along the way.

"Crap! My heel!" Said a very male voice. Sasuke growled and pulled him into the dressing room before Naruto could suffer from any other distraction. Once inside Naruto panted against the wall, watching as his legs became longer, his shoulders wider and his curly blond hair shrink to its original choppy cut.

"How…?" Naruto felt uncomfortable wearing a skirt as a boy, but what was worse was that it was in front of Sasuke, who was sighing into his hands, crouched and still in his female form.

"It must have been the alcohol. You don't know how to hold a technique when you have a drug in your system." Sasuke was avoiding looking at him and was steadfastly turning his head towards the far wall.

"Well that certainly puts a damp blanket on any future parties in this form. I was totally going to go wild with this one, but if it means I end up all weird cross-dressy I guess I'll have to pass."

"I have extra clothes in my bag that should fit." Sasuke said, his face still lightly red on the cheeks.

"I'm fine with whatever, even anything with that dinky fan on it." Naruto whined, all the while squirming in the tight dress. One of his shoes had taken a hit for him while on the run, and the other one was uselessly dangling from the end of his foot. He self-consciously crossed his legs and waited for Sasuke to come back with a simple navy shirt and black pants.

"Here." He dropped them down on the ground in a heap and gave another loud sigh as Naruto began to pull off his pink wear without ever noticing that Sasuke hadn't even turned away yet. His friend changed direction with a huff and crossed his arms.

"Heh, your such a girl Sasuke." Naruto said as he lifted his pants up to his hips and buttoned them closed. Sasuke glared over his shoulder while staring intensely at his face.

"Your make-up is still on and you know it makes you look like a clown."

"What? Oh crap!" Naruto walked over to a nearby mirror and winced when he saw his face covered in sparkles and lipstick. "Nice… Do I have to take it off? What if I want to go out back out as Kiku-chan?"

"Don't. Wipe the make-up off and we can pass you off as her brother."

"Sasuke." Naruto looked back from the mirror, one hand rubbing his lip.

"What?"

"I don't know how to get this off. It normally disintegrates with the jutsu."

Sasuke rolled his eyes and came beside him to the desk. Sitting in the corner was a non-descript black bag that was apparently his, or else Sasuke just had no concept of personal belongings. Out of it he pulled a small white container that read 'remover'. He than lifted out a small cotton pad from the bag, and on it placed the white lotion

"Just hold still for a second." His friend, still in female form moved close, their faces almost touching as Sasuke gently began to wipe his lipstick off with the cotton. "You put this on too thick…" He whispered throatily, making his voice sound deeper. As he just finished his face Naruto blinked rapidly, noticing the proximity of their bodies.

"What's going on here?" A voice asked from the doorway. Both Sasuke and Naruto's heads snapped towards the right to see Nami standing against the border of the entry way with Tetsuko behind her giggling happily.

"I'm… uh…"

"Your our darling Kiku-chan's brother aren't you?" Nami asked with a sickly sweet smile. "And… Naomi…" Whom she gave a cold look.

"He's shirtless." Tetsuko pointed out, to which Nami raised her eyebrow.

"I noticed."

Naruto began to blush, and fought his urge to cover his chest like a girl. Sasuke was still standing in front of him looking unfazed, but his hands were clenched tightly together revealing his irritation.

"Leave us alone. _Now_." Sasuke threatened, crossing his arms toughly, but not managing the same authority that he did when he had a set of kunai at his side.

"Sorry! We're we interrupting something here? A secret rendezvous perhaps? Does Kiku-chan know that her dear brother is dallying with Naomi? I never got the picture that the two of them got along very well…" Nami was watching Naruto like a bird of prey, and it was giving him some serious goosebumps.

"They get along super well. Right Naomi-chan?" Naruto asked, grabbing the end of Sasuke's skirt for reassurance.

"Yeah. Best friends forever." He answered, his voice absolutely monotone.

"Machi-san doesn't allow men to be in here. And she doesn't like any hanky panky either, right Nami?" Tetsuko pointed out, using her famous wit to make a mess out of Sasuke's and Naruto's chances to get out of this.

"What do you two want?" Sasuke ground out of his mouth, his teeth clenching together painfully. The two girls shrugged and went straight to the point.

"We want dates. That's it. We want you to come to the Mask tomorrow and to bring a friend… for Tetsuko." Nami jerked her thumb towards her friend.

"Hey, I don't want the drag queen brunette!" Tetsuko protested.

Nami nodded and waved her hands to shut her up. "Yeah, yeah. It can't be your sick friend, because Kiku-chan said he was gay. Which is a tragedy, because he was damn attractive."

"Gay? You have a gay friend?" Sasuke turned, with a slight twitch in his eye.

"Yeah, him. Don't worry, I'll ask someone else to go. What about Sai, the server?" Naruto ignored the fiery glare of doom emanating from Sasuke and grinned at the two girls who pondered for a moment.

After reaching a silent verdict they both smiled towards each other, "Him! He'd be pretty good. I approve." Tetsuko gave a thumbs up and the deal seemed to be over. "Meet us at six in the front gate wearing formal wear _and bring flowers_!" The reminded him as they prepared to leave.

"This never happened." Sasuke said, probably still angry about being called the gay friend.

"Of course." They left, after finally getting what they wanted. Naruto knew that he wasn't attractive enough to cause them to want him that much, but it must have been enough that he was involved with the infamous Naomi.

"You said I was your gay friend?" Sasuke asked, as Naruto finally shrugged on the navy blue shirt onto his back.

"Well, couldn't let them get too you. There wouldn't be anything left after they were done." Naruto grinned, noticing that Sasuke's face was visibly softening. Naruto couldn't believe how well that worked out… and…

"Oh no." Naruto whispered, finally realizing that he'd just made a horrible mistake.

"What is it?"

"I've already said that I'm going with Miyagi! As a girl!"


End file.
